On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#171

Post by nineplay » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

mitjak wrote: post #161

nineplay wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "obvious" is that operating a family farm as a profitable business is hard. Harder than three of the four adult children in the article are willing to work. That doesn't mean there aren't people who want to do it, that means that a lot of family farms are going out of business because there aren't enough people who want to do it, regardless of external pressures.

that conclusion doesn't necessarily follow though. the proposed thesis by the article author is difficulty of having enough cattle to break even. you need to make enough to grow your operation, which is difficult given that you rely on external factors like creameries. the only reason you only have your family's labour to rely on could also be the difficulty of scaling up.

I think the article writer is glossing over the difficulty of keeping a farm in business without the external factors. My experience, growing up in an farming area, is that the kids of farmers are relieved when the farm is sold to a big conglomerate.

If the author cared so much about the farm, nothing stopped him from going back and dedicating his life to keeping it running.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#172

Post by nineplay » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

phillc73 wrote: post #170

nineplay wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk of stating the obvious, dairy cows do not have a growing season. Cows are a 365 days-a-year commitment.

This is not always the case. I recall learning during my youth that in Victoria, Australia, the heat cycles and pregnancies of the entire herd were synchronised to that it lead to a period of 6 to 8 weeks where no milking occurred at all. That's not to say that there was nothing to do on the farm, or it was time to take a holiday, just that the cows did not need milking during that time period, so perhaps it was easi…

The poster upstream suggested there were 6-8 months of downtime with nothing to do. We've gone down to 6-8 weeks with no milking. There's still feeding and watering and of course monitoring a herd of now-pregnant cows with all the possible health complications that come from that.

I'm also relaying my friend's experience, not just speculating. In her circumstances, there was daily maintenance and no vacations. Perhaps her family didn't budget well enough.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#173

Post by dbg31415 » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

morpheos137 wrote: post #11

Why don't struggling dairy farmers convert to beef production? Seems to me it would be much less labour intensive and more profitable. Obviously if every struggling dairy farmer converted to beef it would drive prices down. I think people are eating less dairy in general than in past times. I am not lactose intolerant but I don't think I have had milk or ice cream for at least a year. I do eat cheese and yogurt so ma…

> Why don't struggling dairy farmers convert to beef production? Seems to me it would be much less labor intensive and more profitable.

Love these comments.

Clearly someone who has never been on a dairy farm vs. a cattle ranch. =P

So for dairy, you normally have smaller pastures (less land) and keep your cows fed hay and expensive foods to help keep them producing high quality milk.

For beef production, you'd normally have large pastures for cattle to graze on grass. More land, more naturally occurring (cheaper), but lower caloric-dense food.

Big call out... there are different kinds of cows for milk and beef. Holstein's make milk, Angus make hamburgers. There's a huge list of types of cattle... each have their own pros and cons for beef vs. dairy production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cattle_breeds

To support the "more land" approach, you have horses to move the cattle around between pastures. You also need equipment to put up hay for the winter (buying hay is expensive).

You can go the feedlot route, but that's more the "finishing school" for beef production. Not a lot of margins at small scale. Dangerous to keep too many cows together too, from a disease perspective.

As a rancher, since you've got a tractor anyway for hay production, and ample land, you may want to plant a few fields of corn, wheat, millet... anything to sort of help cover costs of all the expensive equipment and cost of land. And you're not bound to a rigid daily care schedule for the cattle.

Ranchers have spurts of work... more cows, living outdoors, so harder calving seasons... more work for branding and such, more time fixing fence for bigger pastures. Put ranchers and dairy farmers in a room... they're different people. They may look similar, but they're just wired differently.

You invest a small fortune in the milking facilities, if you run a dairy operation. You invest in land if you're a ranch. They're not like "oh, let's just flip a switch and it's converted."

Anyway I'd write more but just because you have cows, doesn't mean it's at all interchangeable.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#174

Post by mitjak » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

nineplay wrote: post #171

mitjak wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that conclusion doesn't necessarily follow though. the proposed thesis by the article author is difficulty of having enough cattle to break even. you need to make enough to grow your operation, which is difficult given that you rely on external factors like creameries. the only reason you only have your family's labour to rely on could also be the difficulty of scaling up.

I think the article writer is glossing over the difficulty of keeping a farm in business without the external factors. My experience, growing up in an farming area, is that the kids of farmers are relieved when the farm is sold to a big conglomerate. If the author cared so much about the farm, nothing stopped him from going back and dedicating his life to keeping it running.

apologies if i'm coming across condescending or am missing your point but i'm having difficulty comprehending how the author staying on the farm would've fixed anything about the trend towards monopolization fuelled by corporate subsidies and other forms of preferential treatment coupled with those larger actors facing limited responsibility for any of the consequences to surrounding communities and environment?

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#175

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

jpollock wrote: post #135

In New Zealand, the average dairy herd size on the South Island is 611 (414 nationally). In Wisconsin, it's 150. Looks like there's a lot of room for consolidation in Wisconsin. https://www.jsonline.com/in-depth/news/special-reports/dairy... http://www.siddc.org.nz/about-siddc/south-island-dairying/

[deleted]

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#176

Post by cryptica » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

petermcneeley wrote: post #144

cryptica wrote: post #114

I keep saying this and repeating over and over again... Yet keep getting downvoted. The monopolization of everything is caused by monetary policy. All these megacorps are not a natural phenomena. They are not competing on an even playing field. Even die-hard capitalists who read Ayn Rand and watched her interviews will understand that monopolization should not happen without government intervention. The current monet…

How do you explain the railway monopolies?

Monetary policy allowed a small number of people to accumulate a disproportionate amount of capital. This capital allowed them to lobby and influence politicians to give them the right to build and own a massive rail network.

It simply would not have been possible for any group of people to build a rail network which traverses an entire country without serious government intervention. Think of the road/rail crossings that had to be built, bridges over rivers and other parts of the rail network which was built on public land... Think of the number of people who were probably forced by their local government to sell their land to build the railway on top... There was a lot of government intervention to make it possible.

And the amount of capital required to build such rail network could only have been accumulated as a result of unjust monetary policy. The complexity involved in operating a large enough enterprise to accumulate that kind of wealth would simply not be possible on a competitive level playing field to begin with.

On a level playing field, there would be too many profit opportunities for employees to quit and become competitors. There is clearly an artificial force holding everything together. That force is monetary policy. It used to be gold reserve debasement and now it's fiat money printing.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#177

Post by analog31 » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

xipho wrote: post #145

nineplay wrote: post #95

I think he's glossing over the obvious. A friend of mine was just reminiscing about growing up in her family's dairy farm. Every Saturday morning, every Sunday morning, every Christmas you get up to take care of the cows. Feel sick? You've got to get up and take care of the cows. Want to go on vacation? Can't, there's no one you can leave the cows with. It's a hard life - maybe a satisfying life in some ways but ther…

You seem to equate hard work ethic with sustainability, this is false. You obviously have never experienced the joys of winters with nothing todo except read, learn, cook and play, because you worked insanely hard on the farm for 6-8 months of the growing season (being your own boss, but who cares about that).

A friend of mine is a farmer -- typical Wisconsin corn & beans. Those winters are spent finding other income sources. Some of his activities: Driving the big snow plows. Short haul truck driving on country roads in the dark. Repairing his ancient equipment. Being a local dealer for something or other. Same with any time slot that he can fill during the growing season.

An issue he faces is that he pays more for seeds and fertilizer than the big farms, and gets paid less for his crop. Many of the "obvious" ideas to produce specialized crops (organic, popcorn, soybeans for tofu) turn out to be boondoggles that lose money.

I'm not too sad for him -- his land is worth millions, he'll do OK. But the other thing is, he and I are the same age, and he looks about 20 years older. Part of it is that he's driven to do this. It's in his blood. He talks about "feeding the world" and so forth.

Being your own boss, yes. Turns out being a "farmer" looks a lot different if you own the farm, than if you don't.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#178

Post by causasui » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

esaym wrote: post #160

ainiriand wrote: post #13

As a vegan, I am concerned about the cruel treatment of farm animals. Losing family farms only aggravates the problem in this price race against the bigger actors in dairy production. While dairy is not strictly necessary for grown ups, I recognise that it will be present for some time so we should care about how it is produced. Dairy should be more expensive than it is now, similar to what happens to meat.

>As a vegan, I am concerned about the cruel treatment of farm animals. For a somewhat malicious counter point... if the entire world stopped using dairy and beef, the cow as we know it would quickly go extinct. They have no natural habitat, they can't take care of themselves, and they make really lousy pets. It is a somewhat similar story with elephants. They make lousy pets as well and selling ivory is illegal. So t…

> if the entire world stopped using dairy and beef, the cow as we know it would quickly go extinct

So what? Why should the cow exist for the sake of existing?

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#179

Post by rootusrootus » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #126

Spooky23 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agriculture was the first victim of the red/blue phenomenon. Agricultural and trade policy is all about government supported grain industry. For the dairy farmer, they are stuck between regulatory reform that dramatically increases the supply of milk by creating a national market, while their downstream supply chain partners are allowed to consolidate and form monopolies, because American legal theory is insane. I li…

> In the meantime, the well-watered, prime farm I worked on as a teen had most of the topsoil stripped and sold, and there is a subdivision with 40-50 houses on it. Americans are addicted to (boring) houses in the suburbs and cars, it's such a shame.

One man's boring is another man's idyllic.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#180

Post by duxup » Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #163

derriz wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree nostalgia can cloud judgement but there has been a fundamental shift in the nature of farming in the last few decades. Btw, this is a perspective from Europe - the same thing has happened with family farming here. While I didn't grow up on one, I spent a lot of time on my grandparent's farm. Farming has never been easy but the amount of capital required (represented by land, livestock and machinery) to run an…

This seems fairly inextricably tied to a heavy reliance on cereal crops & soy. If fruits & vegetables were a higher portion of our collective diet, more small farmers could be supported (produce being less mechanized) and while food spending would increase, our collective health might improve at the same time.

I think hanging your hat on 'well produce will just make more' if the market shifts towards that is a bit fragile.

Generally farmers have been really good at increasing output across the board... often driving prices way down.

Probably a good idea diet wise, but generally not a tried I'd expect would save many farms for long. We've seen increases in other types of farming boom and bust time and again after flooding the market with product.