Sustainable Farming: The Plight of the Medium-Sized Producer
I recently had the opportunity to tour the Nelson Family Dairy Farm in Wisconsin Dells, WI -- farmed for over 40 years by the entire Nelson Family including Don and Anita, their son Nels and his wife Sarah Lloyd, and their son Peter and his wife Toril.
As a medium-sized dairy producer the Nelsons have many hurdles to conquer in this new age of agribusiness. We currently have two models of distribution: massive corporate farms with commodity distribution, or farmers markets for the small or artisanal producers.
How does the Nelson Family Farm find their business niche when they produce too much to sell through a farmers market, but produce too little to compete with 8,000-cow dairy CAFOs?
Sarah Lloyd proposes creativity and cooperation as we quickly need to erect new distribution channels for the medium-sized producers.
The Corprification of Wisconsin’s Dairy Industry
In 2009, Wisconsin In 2009, Wisconsin dairy farms produced just over 25 billion pounds of milk. The average Wisconsin cow produced just over 20,000 pounds of milk a year in 2009. To maintain 25 billion pounds of annual production, Wisconsin needs 1,250,000 cows.
Here is an example of the different “ways” farmers can produce that 25 billion pounds of milk in Wisconsin:
| NUMBER OF FARMS |
AVERAGE HERD SIZE |
| 12,500 |
100 cows |
| 2,500 |
500 cows |
| 1,250 |
1,000 cows |
| 250 |
5,000 cows |
There are heavy implications for communities, the economy, people, and the land depending on what scenario Wisconsin chooses to set its sights on. While having just 250 large dairy CAFOs might appear to be most efficient, that means that 12,250 small dairy farms – like the Nelson’s – will go out of business.
The Pros and Cons of the California CAFO Dairy Model
According to the 2007 USDA Census of Agriculture, Wisconsin has 14,158 dairy farms while California only has 1,923 – only 8% of which are non-CAFO medium-producer dairy farmers. The Goat Blog says “Mooooove over, Wisconsin. You're quickly losing your dairy state cred to the West.”
A recent article, California Dairy Industry Woes are pinned on Ethanol Subsidies. With industrial farms SO big, farmers are not able to produce everything that they need on their farms. As feed prices are through the roof again, the price producers are getting for milk is down, and California dairy producers are once again struggling. The cost of feed has exploded partly because of ethanol. The price of corn has gone up as it's been used for fuel instead of feed.
And, is bigger really BETTER? According to the 48-page report called Factory Farm Nation, intensive farming methods can come with a host of environmental and public health costs that are borne by consumers and communities -- none of the costs of which are paid by the agribusiness industry.
And scroll around the Factory Farm Map to find out about how factory farms affect all of us from farm families, consumers, food safety, and our health.
So, what should we do?
How do we protect medium-sized farmers from disintegrating, their farms and land subjugated into the large agribusiness CAFO model of factory food?
