A counter to the “dairy is dying” message

1/8/2019The post below links to the sad article published in Washington Post written by a very small dairy farmer who finally gave up the farm and business. But, as this post in AgDaily shows, that piece didn’t tell the whole story.

Dairy farming is in serious trouble. There are many reasons for this, including global market conditions and lower demand for dairy products, particularly in the US and other Western countries.

Dairy farming is also troubled by the growing voices against what anti-farm activists call “factory farming,” which in the activists’ minds is basically any farm that produces more than the local farmers’ markets can use.

The remarkable efficiency of today’s dairy farms is the only way they could possibly survive the ups and downs of global prices while costs continually rise. Hence, we have more and more large farms.

Size doesn’t matter when it comes to the things people care about like caring for animals, people and the environment.

What matters is the farmer, his or her personal character and responsibility, and there financial ability to meet the growing costs of having a farm. Costs that include ever more regulations.

This writer does an outstanding job of communicating some of the challenges farmers face and why efficiency is essential for survival:

https://www.agdaily.com/livestock/no-dairy-farming-isnt-dying-response-washington-post/