"It is a mess. The market just disappeared with the global economic crisis, and unfortunately for dairy producers, they can't simply turn the cows off to reduce the supply of milk," said Michael Marsh, chief executive of Western United Dairymen in Modesto.
"It's particularly tragic because these family farms are multi-generational operations, several of which will have a foreclosure or a bankruptcy as the last of their legacy to California agriculture," Marsh said.
Tom Marchy remembers learning how to milk cows from his grandfather on the family's spread in Stanislaus County. Now 48, he saw disaster looming in the industry last fall and called it quits.
His biggest customer had just canceled his milk contract, and "it was hard to find anyone else to ship to so I just got out."
He sold his herd, about 1,100 black-and-white Holsteins, to a farmer starting a dairy in Oklahoma. Marchy received $1,950 a cow, about $800 more than he would get if he were trying to sell now. Marchy then planted 140 acres of corn on his property in the rural town of Waterford east of Modesto. He continues to tend some heifers, waiting for those young females to mature to milk cows.
Those cows too will be shipped to Oklahoma. Marchy doesn't plan to resume the life of a dairyman.
"This is a young man's game. Unless you are big enough to hire people to do the work for you, it's a hard life," he said.
Collectively, U.S. farmers need to slash milk production by about 5% to bring supplies in balance with current demand, "but we have no good mechanism to do that," dairy owner Vanden Heuvel said.
One initiative will send about 103,000 milk cows to slaughter over the next several months, a move that will reduce the milk supply by about 1%. It is operated by Cooperative Working Together, a voluntary organization in Arlington, Va., that assesses members 10 cents per 100 pounds of milk to use for periodic herd retirement.
The current reduction is the largest ever by the group and buys out 388 farms.
The National Family Farm Coalition is calling for more emergency action to protect the nation's 57,000 dairy farmers. The NFFC is one of several farm groups urging Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set an emergency floor price of $18 per 100 pounds of milk.
