and when it was mentioned that he was looking after a farm that had been in his family for several generations, he was asked why it was that so few new people get into the business. Why was it that one never hears of a young person buying a dairy farm and beginning what this mans great, great grandfather had done?
He said something to the following effect ;
"Just try and convince a 25 year old, fresh out of Agricultural college, to take on a multi million dollar mortgage for a property and a job that requires 12 or more hour workdays, 365 days a year, regardless of weather, milking a herd twice a day, EVERY day, growing his own food for the animals and tending to every other aspect of a complex operation for what will essentially amount to a rate of pay of about $1.25 an hour... IF he is lucky and the markets for his products are good"
homestead appropriately sized parcels to families willing to farm. maybe bonuses to black, native American, and interred Japanese families as reparation.
Yeah. Best of luck.
The trend line for milk consumption has been headed down for years and the number of independent, family owned dairy farms needed to supply the demand for what is essentially a bespoke portion of the overall dairy products market is dwindling.
{And by "bespoke portion" I mean that segment of the dairy farming industry that caters to the likes of Land-O'-Lakes and Sargento and Kraft Cheese and specialty yogurts, etc.}
The large commercial operations in the central valley of California, as an example, are milking several thousand head on a daily basis and they are milking 24 hours a day. They basically have the herd sorted out into groups that are ready to be milked every few hours.
The small, traditional, family owned operation of 200 or so head just simply can not compete against that scale.
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