Farmers Losing Money Milking Cows
|  Video
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| Retha Colclasure |
| 10/27/2009 |
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| Those dairy farmers who don`t want to sell off their herds for slaughter have only one other option: wait it out. And while it`s not easy on the pocketbook, some in the dairy industry say federal money will help ease the pain, if only slightly. Last week, President Obama signed a bill that will give $290 million to dairy farmers across the US. Another $60 million will go to buy up surplus cheese and other dairy products for food banks and nutrition programs. How much will that help a dairy farmer? The answer is, not much. Mark Doll is glad he expanded his dairy operation last year. He wouldn`t have had the money to do it this year. "We need to do more but there`s no way I`d take the risk," says Doll, a New Salem farmer. He`s been losing money with every drop of milk all year long. "So far this year we`re probably behind on our income $75,000 to $100,000," Doll says. Every time a farmer milks a cow, he loses money. The NDSU Extension Service estimated that for 2009, each farmer will lose $1000 per cow. That`s because there`s just too much milk on the market right now. Lots of people are selling it, but not many are buying. "I`d say we`re losing $2 to $3 a hundredweight right now, is what we`ve been losing since the first of January," Doll says. Just about everybody in the industry is facing the same situation. That`s one of the reasons agriculture industries lobbied President Obama for some extra money, and he came through, providing direct payments to farmers, and with a program to help eliminate some of the surplus product on the market. The North Dakota Agriculture Department says those direct payments will be a welcome sight, but the money is just a start, not a complete package. "In a dairy like this it won`t even make up two to three weeks for our lost income so far," Doll says. "It`s some help but it`s not going to get us back to where we need to be." It`s not just the loss of income. Doll says he`s also losing equity, equity that took years to build. "If we go another year, most of us, a lot of us will be in pretty bad shape," he says. Doll says he`s optimistic that prices will recover and he`ll be able to get back on his feet. In the meantime, he`s welcoming the federal money, but not counting on that as a long term fix. Many in the dairy industry agree that stable prices are what will ultimately fix the milk market. The Ag Department says it`s hard to determine just how much money North Dakota producers will receive, but says the formula will likely be based on how large or small an operation is. |
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