Greene County, Tennessee, once had over 1000 dairy farms. Six years ago it had 40. It now has 14. In all of Tennessee there are about 125 dairy farms.
Today 60% of all milk production comes from farms with more than 2500 cows. A dairy farm with 2500 farms is not a farm, it is an industrial behemoth. I never lived on a diary farm; we only had two cows and used most of the milk ourselves. The cows produced manure which we spread on the fields. There once were other dairy farms in Towamensing Township that specialized in dairy cows, but I know that none had more than 40 cows.
With mechanical milkers and a few large fields, a farmer, the kids, and maybe a hired hand can keep the herd and do the milking. When you have 2500 cows the manure will end up in a lagoon. You will hire people to take care of the milking. They will probably speak Spanish. (70% of agricultural workers in the U.S. are Spanish-speaking.) Equipment will be costly. Processes will be computerized. You may mix antibiotics in with the feed.
I suppose I sound like a home spinner during the Industrial Revolution after the spinning jenny was invented and thread began to be made in factories. So be it. I think we are losing something precious, and I don’t like it. I might even throw in a “dagnabbit” here.
Some of the info for this post came from Elizabeth Eckelkamp, “America’s Dairy Farms Are Disappearing, Down 95% Since the 1970s,” Lancaster Farming, (Sept. 21, 2024, p A8.
Good blog. And it doesn’t only apply to dairy farms. Carol
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame, but the economics of scale is a reason for the demise if dairies. I worked at Bear Creek Dairy when I was in school, it's a lot of hard work and it's a 365 day a year operation, so that helped drive dairymen away from dairying.
ReplyDeleteI remember Bear Creek Dairy chocolate milk. So good.
ReplyDeleteIt was the best! Sold a lot of it on the Lake Harmony delivery run to the various customers.
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