(HOST) Commentator Edith Hunter has been thinking about the many changes in Vermont’s dairy industry over the last three decades – and one troubling consistency.
(HUNTER) In 1980, my husband and I were still publishing our little weekly newspaper, The Weathersfield Weekly. Along with covering all kinds of meetings, I was writing an occasion feature story as well.
A new organization, Agrimark, was about to be formed in the milk industry. This organization would handle the distribution of the milk being produced at local dairy farms.
In 1980 there were nine dairy farms in Weathersfield. By 2009 this number has been pared done to one. Some of the nine dairy farmers were going to join the new organization. Some were not.
I was curious as to what motivated the farmers. Were they a little wary of the size of the proposed new "cooperative"? Did they, like me, tend to see "small is beautiful"?
I decided to interview the nine dairy farmers and write a feature story about the operation of each of them. I would visit each farm, take pictures of the owners and their cows, and learn all I could about the production of milk in town.
And so I wrote my feature story on the milk industry in Weathersfield in 1980. I learned a great deal. I learned that some of the farmers favored holstein cows and other farmers a mix of holstein and jerseys. Some had swiss. Why? I learned that the farmers had little control over the amount they could charge for their product. Why?
One fact that I was told by farmer after farmer really stuck in my mind: unless they could get at least $13 a hundred weight for their milk, they would be losing money, Sometimes they got $11 and other times they might get as much as $15, but it was essential for survival, that they get at least $13.
Thirty years later, the problem is much the same. Every time the question of dairy farmers comes up, my ears prick up when I hear the figures for a hundred weight of milk. And recently what I have heard is that if a farmer can’t get at least $18 a hundred weight, a dairy farmer cannot survive. That is certainly logical when one thinks of the price of feed, of energy etc., in 2009 as compared with 1980.
I recently met up with the son of one of those farmers in the town office. He is now running the farm. Recalling my article he said: "Guess what, Edith? We’re getting $11 a hundred weight right now!" He said that he is working at a loss, month after month.
How much longer will there be even one dairy farm in Weathersfield?