The sad thing, here the farmers are not getting any "gov't" subsidy and they are going out of business because they are tired of working 24/7 for enough to barely pay bills, let alone service any debt or get ahead. Mailbox price here is around 18.00, it depends on the butterfat and the SCC. Hauling is high for the smaller farmer, the milk companies do not want to make all the stops and the larger farms get an extra incentive if they ship at least a 1/2 tankerload; like about 25,000 lbs every other day. For comparison, many of my 80 cow herds are averaging say 60 lbs milk per day. So that is a shipment of say 9600 +/- lbs every other day. So these farms basically have to be milking 175 and more cows and be averaging over 72 lbs per cow per day. I think the latest incentive is $.20 per 100 lbs. if they are shipping over 25,000. Maybe it's more, but regardless, even at $.20/100 that's an extra $50 per pickup every other day; times 15 pickups, that's an extra $750 just for the volume. And I think it is $.40/100 lbs but I just can't remember.
BUT WAIT, we have a surplus of milk so why are we encouraging these farms to get bigger????? Because they want fewer, BIGGER, farms, and more control over them because then it is harder for the farmer to just up and go to another milk company because there is a surplus.... and then it is harder for the farmer to just quit because he is in debt and the bankers do alot of controlling the situation....
There's alot more involved too, milk companies pay for a lower Somatic Cell count as that makes the milk have a longer shelf life. And I am all for that; have a couple farms that regularly ship milk with scc of less than 100,000. There're farms that ship butterfat over 4.0% all the time, and they gat paid for the butterfat too, but when the milk companies take all that out to make the STANDARD 3.25% of "whole milk" , they are making alot off the farmers milk. Used to be whole milk was 3.5% but not now. And they push this "low fat" crap so much that people don't like the taste of true whole milk because they are accustomed to thin watery colored water.
I had people begging me for milk from my jersey last year that I hand milked. $5.00 per half gallon and they were thrilled to make a "contribution" since we are in a state that you cannot legally sell raw milk. Right now I get my milk from a farm where I have a cow in the milking herd, but once my others calve, I will be doing some milking and using them as nurse cows also. I hope to go to cow/herd shares after I retire so that they will pay for their feed and give me a little for my time. We'll see.
75% of my dairy farmers that I test for, are over 50, most in the 60 yr old range and over half have no one to take over the farm .... I always wanted my own small dairy; today I am glad I don't have it because I would not be able to survive even with no debt load.