It is happening here too. It is breaking my heart as a milk tester, to see the farmers who simply cannot see a way out with the milk prices so low. This area did not go through the problem of losing the milk contract like the ones that dean food cut off, but most are seeing daily costs continuing to rise, and milk prices are well below the break even point. The older ones are saying enough, the younger generations don't want to work 24/7 for less than a living wage and no one can blame them anymore. And the ones that are willing to live the lifestyle, simply can't when they cannot make enough to even pay their basic bills.
The farms that are not carrying alot of debt are struggling. The older farmers that felt that when it came time to retire, they would sell their cows and have some decent money to maybe just go to crop farming or run some beef cows, are not making enough off the sale of the cows to reinvest in beef cattle. A springing heifer ready to calve used to bring 1500 to 2200 average, in the 90's and early 2000's . Now you are lucky to get 1000 for her. It costs you more than that to feed her, breed her and get her ready to come into the milking herd. For the first time that I can ever remember, holstein heifer calves are barely bringing 50 at the stockyard. Bull calves are bringing 75 to 150. I can NEVER remember a bull calf bringing more than a heifer.
And prices are higher for everything than they were 20 years ago, yet the return on investment is less. It cannot pencil out.
It is not only the dairy farmers themselves that are losing out. All the support industies are suffering and it will continue to trickle down. The fewer the farms, the bigger the farms, they will buy direct from companies instead of going through "suppliers". There will be fewer companies that will supply things like detergents, etc for the pipeline , teat dip and things that the farmer needed on a daily/weekly basis. Fewer needs for vets and the routine services they provide. Fewer equipment dealers, fewer part dealers, fewer on call guys for breakdowns in the dairy barns. This is translating to fewer companies that will stay in business. So all these people will have to find work elsewhere. The smaller towns that supported the dairy farmer will start to die off as people move elsewhere for jobs. Land values will drop in some areas, but in areas like around here, it will go up as more houses are built and the urban sprawl continues outward. These people all seem to work in "town jobs" and can afford the mortgage on their little 1-2-5 acre place. Then the truth of a generation that is further removed from the farm will continue to perpetuate and become the norm.
What happens when all the farms that "migrate" to the west and such, that buy all their feed and run 5-10-50,000 cows and tap all the aquifers, and they start to run out of water as the aquifers are not replenished fast enough? What happens when there is too much competition for water for both human and animal populations? What happens when there is not enough water to do all this irrigating for the crops that are required? What happens when there is any type of disease that can run rampant through a large population that is confined in such close proximity? What happens to the genetic diversity and longevity when the average lifespan of a dairy cow is less than 2 lactations? How do you breed for something that the breed no longer will ever be able to try to achieve?
Dairies are unique in that you cannot put off til next week to get in the crop and sell it. They have to be milked every day. A beef farmer has flexibility and if he can't get them in this week, prices are off, he can usually hold them for a week or two or so. His crop ( calves) will not get sick and die or get mastitis or something, if they have to wait a week or two to go to market. They are not perishable if they aren't refridgerated immediately. There is some flexibility with most all other types of farming. If it is raining, you wait to cut hay until it is calling for better weather....or you do things like wrap it. A grain farmer can wait a week if it is wet, for the next dry spell. He might lose some of the crop or the quality will suffer like overmature hay....but a dairy farmer just doesn't have that option. And with the milk markets being pulled out from under them, they had no options because you can't milk cows and dump it down the drain because nothing is paying the bills. Even if it is all their own feed, there is electricity to pay for to run the operation.
A beef farmer can sell his "crop" of calves at a stockyard auction. Grain can be sold on the commodities market. Hay auctions are around. Sale of vegetables can be farmers markets, and there are wholesale veg and flower markets.....but where can you sell your milk? If you are in a raw milk "unfriendly state" there is not even that option although in a state that allows it, it is still next to impossible to find enough outlet for the quantity that some farmers make. There are not any real viable options.
I don't know if there is an answer anymore. We are losing something that is a very tangible part of our fiber and that fiber will continue to weaken as more and more threads are removed or replaced by fewer threads.