Six left

I talked with my neighbor north of me that milks 180 or so. He said our county has 6 dairy farms left milking cows. Hard to believe. When I was young grade B dairy was pushed out and if you wanted to continue milking you had to use a bulk tank and move to grade A. At that time they said there were just over 200 dairies in our county. Now 6. Guess the number of lactating cows hasn't changed much, in fact they claim more cows are milked now than in the 60s. Just think how many less pick up trucks are sold each year for the small dairy guys. How many mowers, rakes and balers sold to keep those cows fed. Think how many guys went to town each week to the hardware store to get some nuts, bolts, nails or paint. While in town they fueled up the pick up, maybe grabbed a burger. Now there are only a couple kids in each class at school who are growing up on a farm. Most all of the farm kids hung out together in school back in the day. That social group is now gone from the hallways. The group of boys with work boots, carhart jackets and seed corn hats gone. Never will the hallways get a hint of barn smell from the kid who helped his Dad do morning chores and was running late so he had to skip a shower so he wouldn't miss the bus. Guess its isn't so hard to imagine. I watched the farms disappear that sold eggs, boilers or turkeys. Then the hog farms dropped one at a time. Somewhere along the line the sheep farms vanished. Now we are down to 6 dairies. We do have the mega hog barns. Where the guy who owns the barns doesn't own the pigs,some don't even feed them. So we do have hogs, just not hog farmers. Each guy is a cash crop farmer who wanted free hog poop so he built a barn. Some how this isn't the same.Guess I am someone who hates to see change. Al

Back in the '70s, there were 5 or 6 dairy farms right here in my neighborhood. They were not large, but still produced enough milk to be on an every-other day pickup route. Now there are none, and even the beef cow herds are nearly gone. No one raises hogs or chickens. Both of those have gone to the factory farms.

It's five miles from the house to town. When I was a kid there were a dozen 50 to 75 cow dairy farms on the way - now there's two, and they're on the verge of getting out too
It was a great way of life that's now all but gone

Used to be a lot of farms with kids cows chickens and pigs. Now very few farmers fewer kids and only factory farms that grow only one thing, row crops pigs, chickens, beef. The rural areas used to be bustling see kids working their 4H projects playing outside ect, now you don't see anyone.

when I started dhia field tester (1989) the county I live in Stephenson Co. il was in top 50 in country (USA) in both number of dairy farm and number of cow per square mile I have no idea were we today

Change is normal. It keeps accelerating which makes it more noticeable. Two old bachelor brothers next to our farm said that before the turn of the century (19th to 20th) the biggest change they had observed was the changeover from oxen to horses. There was no such thing as an airplane. By the time one of those brothers was 50 years old he had become a licensed pilot and owned an airplane. We had no electricity the year I was born (1936). The poles were up but didn't have electricity until 1937. My first Christmas tree had candles on it. I learned to drive in a Model A Ford when I was 8 years old. Then, we just drove until old enough to get a license. Henry Ford made tractors to make the 80 acre farmer's life easier. It didn't work out as planned. (Most things don't) Instead of taking things easy, the farmer bought more land now that he had this new found increase in productivity. We have one dairy farmer left in our township with several hundred cows but we have a dairy in the county with over 4000 cows. When I first started flying helicopters the main rotor blades were made of wood. Now, they're made of plastic. Don't have to be concerned about tying them down too tight in the rain and having them warp.(True) As far as my life is concerned, things couldn't be better. Plenty of everything and everything from household appliances to farm equipment to motor vehicles to airplanes work much more reliably and last longer and no, we didn't run out of oil 30 years ago as the so called "experts" said we would. They totally misinterpreted what the oil companies were saying about having a 20 year supply of oil in front of us. Once the oil companies see that they have a 20-25 year supply of oil ahead, it doesn't make much sense to keep exploring for new sources as fast as possible. One big problem, as I see it, is that we've educated too many idiots. When you do that, all you end up with is an educated idiot. All too evident today.

Happening all over...7 miles between two towns here...1 970s, every farmer on the road milked cows. Later, none. I moved here in "72. I could take 4 roads to town 4 miles away. There were 32 farms on those roads, 28 of us milked cows. We were the last ones to quit, 18 years ago. Then one started up, milking 36, still does. 7 miles south is a 1500 cow dairy, 3 and five miles north are a 1500 and a 2000 cow dairy- owned by brothers. One brother has a partnership in 2 other similar size dairies.

Interesting Our milking stopped in 1955. Hand milked cows were not going to make a profit, and 4000 dollars to put in minimum used milking machines and pasteurizing was never going to happen. Jim

Data (no guarantee of accuracy but reasonable: Total operating---37,468
The number of dairy farms in the U.S. has been sharply declining, and now a U.S. Department of Agriculture report has revealed by just how much. According to the data, the U.S. lost 2,731 (6.5%) licensed dairy farms from 2017 to 2018. The total number of dairy farms is now at 37,468.Mar 20, 2019

The only thing constant is change. It can be hard to accept and difficult to adapt once you get your mind on things being a certain way. Economy of scale plus technology have totally reshaped farming in the last 50 years.

Our area is rapidly growing and lots of development. Farm land is being sold a development prices. No way to go out and buy farm land and make the cash flow to pay for it. Retiring farmers cash in at these prices to have retirement income. Sad that things have evolved that way but that's the unfortunate reality of it.

We live in Amish country, so our stats are a little different....every year there are MORE cows being milked (albeit, not a "dairy" operation). We have 3 ourselves - they are on loan to a neighbor because its hard to milk with my arm in a sling (shoulder surgery). There are a couple hog confinements nearby (within 10 miles), but they are small.

I flew with some guys who had flown Convair 440's in passenger service. The most daunting task, they said, in a given flight was getting the radials started. The rest was cake. The last thing I flew had FADEC controlled turbines and they were insanely reliable.

It seems that all those educated idiots migrate toward government jobs.

Friend of mine was a DHIA tester in 1972- asked me to take over his route for a couple of weeks while he went to California (I'm in Washington)- he called from Cal and said he wasn't coming back, so the route was all mine. I did it for about 6 months, then moved on. Thinking back, I don't think a single dairy on my route is still in operation.

The trend to "get big or get out" is not limited to farming. You oldtimers think about what things were like when we were kids- corner gas station that did oil changes and brake adjustments, several food markets in town, drug stores, dime stores, all gone, replaced by WalMart, mega-giant chain supermarkets and drug stores, corporate owned gas stations with smart pumps and no other services (when the first coin operated air machine for tires went it, it was a quarter- now its a buck fifty cash, or $1.75 if you use a credit card). All has to do with economies of scale, and it will never be like the old days again.

With 3000 counties in the country, that computes to average of 12 dairy farms per county if every county in the country has dairy farms. Many of our counties have 10 - 12 townships so that computes to average of 1 dairy farm per township. Can't think of any type of farming that is more physically demanding time and labor wise than dairy farming. Most young people in 2019 would not want to work that hard or not be able to access capital needed to start a dairy farm unless they were born into a dairy farm family. Almost have to have it in your blood to want to do it.

Be honest.

Would you really want to give up all your modern technology and live your parents life.

Virtually no one would choose to go back. Men died at 55 or 60 (and they looked about 90 years old by age 60). Children died of polio or even ear infections. Women died from all manner of disease. You changed oil every 2000 or 3000 miles, had to do "valve jobs" and "brake jobs" and the cars/pickups were junk by the time they had 60,000 miles on them. The list could go for page after page. Nothing about any of that appeals to me or anyone else I know of.

I'm 51, going on 52, and my Dad's 71.
Would I prefer to live the life of my parents, or ancestors, you bet I would.

For those that talk about technology, I'll agree things have come a long way in some areas, medicine for instance. In other areas, technology doesn't help us as much as it does to drive even more technology. That said, there is a huge difference between advances like a round bailer vs a square bailer, a gas tractor vs a diesel tractor, etc, etc, and the electronic, computer controlled EVERYTHING we see now days.

Think about it, what would you rather have, a car that needed a $50 valve job at 50K miles, and lasted as long as you could afford to make repairs, or a car that runs on average 90K mikes before a timing belt breaks, and trashes the engine, meaning you need another vehicle? How about one that is involved in a fender bender, that does just that, rather than totalling the vehicle? Just saw the latter last night when my wife got hit in the rear. Car A at 45 MPH, hit B that was sitting still and pushed it into our Suburban. The other cars are probably totalled. Our Suburban has a bent bumper and a dent in the liftgate, and is still drivable.

On equipment, here's what I've seen. Tractor is sold with all the bells and whistles, with the promise of fuel savings, etc. Fuel is saved, at say $1000 a year for 5 years. When all the bells and whistles screw up at the 6 year mark, the repairs needed to all that technology cost you $10K, on top of the lost production costs until the dealer gets around to you. Does anyone really see any savings in that equation?
That's not saying old equipment doesn't break, but when you, or your mechanically inclined buddy, can change your own turbo, injectors, etc, on a weekend, without needing a dealers computer to do it, you wind up way further ahead.

As far as things like bring in a crop, again, there is technology for that too. But what do you do when the GPS fails, the computer that runs your bailer fails, etc, it's Friday, and you've got hay on the ground with rain coming?

As I said, technology has driven technology. Better medical means more people. More people means more food. More food means more technology to make more food and do it faster. Doing it faster means you're running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to do more with less, and do it in less time, and staying in debt to afford the technology to do it...until that technology let's you down.

In the end, I'd much rather live 60 years and actually LIVE, rather than living to be 80+ and essentially being a slave to technology my whole life, as most really are, if they'd admit it.

This age is almost over. In the next age there will be no metal. The Book of Enoch.

Heard the comment "we used to have neighbors, now we have competitors". As late as 10 yrs ago local bar was packed w/farmers winter afternoons. These guys would do chores in morning, drink coffee at feed mill, get lunch then drink and play cards till evening chores. Beats wintering in warm climate or polishing new paint. imo

Better idea would have been to get part times jobs during the day to make some income for their families instead of throwing it away at a bar.

That's fine with me. I'll take megamarts with guaranteed satisfaction or your money back, no questions asked, economies of scale in their purchasing power, multitude of choices, online ordering for rural folks with wide selections delivered to your door.......whadda deal.

Your opinion. I'd say after a year of livestock, harvest, and some ear corn picking, these WWII/ Korean Vets knew how to kick back.

Maybe so but that is why many farmers don't make it they treat a part time farm as a full time job.

Some of these guys sound like millennials . Do we really want to have to do what our parents did oh it?s to hard it?s to much work well I?d love to live like my grandparents I could more than make a living on the land and cattle I have now hard yes but it would be worth it

(quoted from post at 09:46:58 10/18/19) Would you really want to give up all your modern technology and live your parents life.

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In a heartbeat.