There is a lot more to the farmers delemna than just the unfair prices paid for crops and high inputs. Where I live roughly 50% of the land is not owned by the farmers who farm it but by investors out to make a buck. The result? Higher land prices and as a result of that higher property taxes. Farmers can not make land pay for it self at the high prices resulting from investors driving up values. On top of that, when crop prices do spike to a fair profit, everyone wants to raise rents or input costs to get "their share" thus negating any profit the farmer would have realized for his risk. If the crop fails, the farmers lose even more but the landowners and the fertilizer people etc. still get their money. New farm machinery is priced far beyond its value to the point it cant pay for itself either. Look at the spike in prices for used machinery. It is going up while the new stuff sits in dealerships because the combination of high inputs/low prices for product make it unaffordable to most of us who farm.

Is it no wonder so many farmers are going broke?

Jen is correct, visit the farmers market, also look for "farm to table coops" or share farmers, you pay a fee and you get that percentage of whatever they raise.

But, it costs more to you, for now. Give agribusiness another few decades to consolidate other crops they was Tyson has with chicken, then see how expensive it is to eat.

The other problem is small farmers are modeling large farms, and the economies of scale just do not work. A small farmer needs to use more grazing and less processed feed, and they need to diversify, sell value added products or have some specialty be it organic, high animal welfare, grass fed, or extremely high quality to market thier product. Small farmers will always struggle on the wholesale market. It is time for dairymen to realize that trying to produce more, more, more simply drives the price down, down, down. They need to think outside the box. The small dairies I know which are doing this are raising families on 60 cows. The farmers who are trying to model large farms are folding. No matter how hard they work or how good they are, they cannot survive on the wholesale market. Of course transitioning from a large model to a smaller one when in the red is easier said than done, I realize. The alternative however is not any easier.

As the old saying goes Farming is a great life but a hard way to make a living.The whole farm policy needs to be dumped and started over.The ones who need the help dont get it and the ones who farm with other incomes its just icing on the cake for them

And here is another thing that will put dairy farmers out of business and those who raise grass fed beef, chickens, goats, pigs, ponies or any other 2 or 4 legged farm animal....

NAIS (The National Animal Identification System), is a so-called disease tracking food safety program the USDA is forcing on those who own even one chicken or any other farm animal. Many are being signed up without their knowledge or permission. 90% are against this program.

Under NAIS you register your premises, microchip all critters at your cost, report all their movements, births, deaths to a database, then risk losing them to depopulation if disease is suspected in a 6 mile radius! Currently, only sex offenders/child molesters are tagged tracked and register their premises. Animal owners will be tracked closer than illegals!

Protection from disease is why we are told NAIS is needed, but the real reason is for the benefit of big agriculture/factory farms so they can sell meat globally. But they do not have to tag/ track individual critters. They get ONE lot number for each animal group. And the tracking of any animals stops at slaughter, after which many food safety issues occur.

The listening sessions currently being held by the USDA about NAIS show the people are overwhelmingly against NAIS. See nonais dot org for more info on the program that will affect everyone who eats.

How do we get the politicians to realize we will not re-elect them if they don't stop hurting the small and mid-size family farms?

We don't need all this milk! A bit for cheeses and some for cooking, but for drinking it is foolish. We have been sold this idea by brilliant advertising and it too is subsidized.

Just stop using this 'milk' and see how long it takes for the big operators to get out and the locals to again prosper!.

if you are losing that much money, you should be a cotton farmer. we lose to but don't have to get up that early good luck

Does anyone know who or what determines the price of milk? Last time I checked (right before we went out of business) there was a government milk board. The country is carved up into districts (about 9 if memory serves correctly). This gentleman's should be located in Chicago. They set the price of milk and used to publish what time of day they would release the data, accommodating for holidays of course. Furthermore, the price of milk is based on the price of cheese, not the cost of production. I never understood why the price should be set be anyone other than the folks who do the work and take all the risk. Why is it that the American farmer is not allowed to recover his cost of production? It's about time the rules were changed!

One of the questions I keep coming back to is why is it that Agriculture is the only industry that is chided for using technology? The US is producing more with less for an expanding population. I cannot quote the figures but the total farm bill is less than one of the stimulus payoffs. The farm programs are actually less than one percent of total federal spending (less now I am sure). Can't we afford to support the farmer/rancher? I think we can and we should. We better do all that we can to maintain our agriculture heritage. It is a matter of national security.

Considering what it costs to farm (dairy, cattle, hogs, grain - any type) these days, its a wonder there are any family farms left at all. Think about only getting $12 per 100 pounds for your milk then going to the grocery and spending over $3 for one gallon to drink! If a gallon of milk is about 8.6 lbs, then the dairy farmer is getting less than $1 a gallon for milk and cream. No wonder so many dairy farmers get out of the business.

Not to mention the cost of electricity for pumps to water pasture. Most dairies (80%) don't run their cows on pasture, they feed silage (chopped hay that has fermented) which loses much of its nutrient content (like beta carotene.) It's converted to vinegar in the process. The dairymen that put cows on pasture have lower vet bills, fewer problems and healthier milk production (less mastitis). It is not as labor intensive. Allowing cows to feed themselves on pasture could help with production costs and keep vet bills down, but also they seriously need to consider solar and wind power for electrical production. We are small and on solar, and we couldn't survive without free electricity. There's no way I would ever pay a power bill again.

then there is the milk that is dried and stored and sent overseas to people who are starving, malnourished, etc. These humanitarian efforts help make America great in the eyes of the world, but not if it causes the farmers their livelihoods.

If President Obama thinks this recession is a challenge, just wait
till the U.S.A. loses one third of it's dairy industry, twelve more
months like the last six should put us right there. When twenty-thousand
dairy farmers leave. they are gone forever. Now is the time for all
Americans to step up and save your cheap and abundant food supply. Doing
nothing will only let our nation falter further. Dairy farmers only need
one thing, a fair percentage of retail price consumers pay in the store, and the store to have a minimum selling price locked in.

Ask yourself a few questions:

1. Will the retail market's current prices support a fair price to dairy farmers?  Yes, then why are we not getting a fair percentage on the farm
2. Why are consumers, (who are paying a fair price) being taxed to support the milk payment too?  When the farmers sell the raw milk to the creamery they sell could easily pay a fair percentage to
   the farmers for their incomes.
3.  Why, when I think this should be simple  does it seem impossible for the USDA to realize?  Of course, there are a few huge companies with monopolies the dairy sector would still be able to manipulate the price for their advantage.  That we need to watch and regulate.

Support a fair percentage of retail price, revisited monthly by USDA to establish what the fair percentage is compared to the farmers average cost of production is in that month.

Thank you for finally making our crisis a national subject for discussion.

Bernie

Hunts Valley Dairy

Wisconsin

My brother is a Dairy farmer in Texas who I worked for while in school (3am and 3pm milk times - whew.....) I would like to see what Dairy farmers were getting per pound let's say 30 yrs ago to now, I bet there is not much difference in prices but of course feed bills have increased.

For those of you who commented about farmers whining-if you have never lived or worked on a dairy farm (or any kind of farm)-shut the hell up! You haven't got a clue as to what it takes to provide you with the food you pick up so conveniently at the local supermarket.

Want to complain? I suggest you go spend a couple months working at a dairy farm or cattle operation and then take another look at your opinion of our farmers. By then I would bet that you thank your lucky stars for the American farmers.

We would do well to get rid of dairy farms altogther; the article leaves out that they are the #1 polluter of fresh groundwater, aside of being heavily subsidized by the government and a waste of both money and resources. Add in the less than exemplary treatment of the animals involved and the catastrophic effects for human health (ie, cholestorol, hearts attacks, obesity) and you have to wonder why we even have them at all. We need to move beyond this old idea of animal husbandry as it is no longer sustainable. You can feed hundreds of people with the amount of water and grain it takes to feed one cow. Ridiculous.

= T>R>E>E - H>U>G>G>E>R.

We should probably get rid ig the military to, right?

My husband and I farmed his family farm for 30 years. 15 years ago, we sold out due to the price of milk not keeping up with the cost of farming. We had a son who desperately wanted to stay on the farm. Couldn't support 2 families. We were not a huge dairy farm. Milked 125 cows. There are a few of things that always bothered me. First, if the price of any dairy product went up in the store, everyone complained. We( farmers) paid the same price as everyone else for milk, ice cream, cheese. I didn't have a card that said I was a dairy farm wife and got a discount. The government set our price for our product, and we had to take it. They didn't want Americans paying a hefty price for food. Didn't matter if it cost more to produce than what they paid us, you had to keep the price of food down. BUT if a car cost a $1,000 more than last year, the auto manufacturer could pass this cost onto the consumer, and people would go out and borrow the money to buy that car no matter what the price. Wouldn't give it a second thought. But ask them to pay a little more for milk.. My lord, those miserable farmers are stealing the milk right out of my baby's mouth!!!! Part of the problem is that the right people have not starved in this country yet. THE Decision Makers are not the ones going hungry. We pay for their food, with our tax dollars. They pull up to the pump and take out OUR WALLETS to pay.. Same with their health care and income. I still have the stubs from our old milk checks. These farmers are getting the same price for milk today that we got in 1978. No one else could survive like this. Farmers are not martyers. They farm because they love the land and the cattle and the feeling of raising their famlies to know the value of hard work. They are not asking for a handout.. Just fair treatment. It is their choice to work 7 days a week to provide this nation with good , safe food. When the family farm dies, and corporate farms take over, THEY ( the huge corporate farm) will be telling the government what they are going to pay for milk. Then everyone will wish the small farmer was back. One last thing. Farm wives.. I had a banker tell my husband that he shouldn't have any life insurance on me because other than "and emotional loss" I didn't contribute anything to the business. That is the thinking of businessmen. Most people do not even understand how a farm works. I am so glad to see this article and all of these posts supporting farmers. Even after all these years, I still consider myself a farm wife. Thank all of you for your supportive comments.

I think the entire solution to this problem is simple! Drag all the Washington D.C. dead ass politicians out of bed at 3:15 A.M. and have them work the fields and see how soon they start helping out the small farmer!

Farmers are the hardest working citizens in our country and It's so distressing to see their suffering as it is all suffering in America. I was never into farming but I was born in Vermont and lived the other half of my life in Maine. Me and wife just moved to Florida and things are tough here too.

What were you doing at 3:15 a.m. today? Dairy farmer Joe Hibschman of Syracuse, Ind., was waking up to milk his cows, just like he's been doing every day for the last 43 years.

I know the price of milk has been difficult for the dairy farmers.

I too grew up on a small dairy farm...It's not there anymore, no one could afford to keep it going. All these posts are amazing in the fact that almost all are both factual with good information, and all are extremely polite. I wonder if the truth and politeness of our family farmers has ever been appreciated.

Bless all of you that still carry on, I do remember just how hard it was. Thank you!

I did the dairy thing for 25 years, 14 hour days, 365days/year and most years the property taxes were more than my net profit. I finally walked away with the shirt on my back and was glad to at least have that. Not going to have much of a retirement fo sure! hips and knees are shot, back is causing much pain. It seemed the harder you worked the lower the price of milk became.

I did the dairy thing for 25 years, 14 hour days, 365days/year and most years the property taxes were more than my net profit. I finally walked away with the shirt on my back and was glad to at least have that. Not going to have much of a retirement fo sure! hips and knees are shot, back is causing much pain. It seemed the harder you worked the lower the price of milk became.