As a 12 year old boy, I found myself walking down the road ½ mile every weekday after school to my uncle’s dairy farm to help with the afternoon chores. In 1966 dairy farms of 20-40 cows surrounded the countryside where I grew up in Upstate New York: I was one of many young people who would learn to work making hay, milking cows, feeding calves, pitching manure, boiling sap, driving tractor, and all the other jobs required on rural American farms. My own father had milked cows on our farm until I was 5 years old, but he had 4 kids to feed and the price of milk dropped from $4 to $2/cwt. With the added requirements of installing bulk tanks (instead of the old milk can cooler), drinking cups, gutter cleaners, and a new milk house, he sold the milking cows and found more profitable work to support his family.
As I finished school and was looking for my own vocational purpose in life, I wanted to spend my working hours doing something that I believed in, something that would benefit my family, neighborhood and the free country that I was blessed to grow up in. My growing up years had been perfect, and I wanted my children to have the same opportunity to experience life in rural America, full of teachable moments working with Mom and Dad.
I was offered the opportunity to enter dairy farming as a college student studying Agricultural Business at Alfred State. My father wanted to set me up in business and show me the ropes. Dad and I worked together for 5 years milking 55 cows: growing all our own feed: corn silage, hay, ear corn, oats, and grazing the cows and heifers all summer. It was a dream come true; working with my parents, outdoors facing all the challenges of a herd of cows, crops, machinery, business decisions alongside a Father to show me how to make it all produce wholesome fresh milk and delicious meat, maple syrup, apples, etc.
All I lacked was a wife to labor with me; Dotty and I were married August 27, 1983. What a gift from heaven to spend a lifetime of happiness, raising seven boys and one girl; producing nourishing milk and homeschooling our children while laboring to feed nourishing food to the masses.
When Dotty and I bought the home farm in 1983 we had been selling raw milk since 1978 when Dad and I started the dairy up again. In 2014 there were 4,950 dairy herds in New York State. Back in 1978 I would guess there were maybe twenty to thirty times that number of small dairys spread all over the countryside, with most supplying their own family, and any neighbors who desired, raw milk. We had families from church, families from town as well as our own extended family drinking fresh milk from the bulk tank year round. In those years no permit was required and raw milk was not a controlled substance. Ever since man learned to milk cows there has been a demand for raw milk. Milk is nature’s most perfect food. Milk is what newborn babies long for and need to provide all the essential amino acids to build strong bodies.
I chose to be a dairy farmer because I believe in the nourishing power of milk. There are many beverage choices out there but milk is the most wholesome choice I know of. When I ask people why they drink raw milk the #1 response is, “The delicious taste”. They also answer that it is more nutritious as it has not been processed which alters some of the nutritive features of milk. Additionally, recent studies show that cows grazing grass produce milk and meat with a healthier Omega 3 and Omega 6 ratio and more conjugated linoleic acids.
The demand for raw milk was strong in 1978, but it was readily available with so many small dairy farms all over the country and no outside controls. Today the demand is growing rapidly as a recent survey estimates 10,000,000 people have consumed raw milk in the past two weeks. Many people are drinking raw milk and are also making yogurt, cheese, kefir, cottage cheese, ice cream, and butter.
In 2002 I became certified organic through NOFA-NY and started selling organic milk. We have a hill farm with heavy clay soils and at a 2300 ft. elevation the growing season is cool and short. Grass farming is readily adapted to these conditions so we graze animals all during the growing season and feed dry hay and baleage in the winter. It was relatively simple to change our farm from conventional milk production to organic. The main change was finding a source of organic grain and then just filling out paperwork. Change is not something that people like to do, but I have learned that if we don’t change our practices, our results will be the same as before. I have seen the limitations of commodity farming in America in regards to farm income. We as a nation have taken food for granted and the government has adopted a cheap food policy. This cheap food policy aligns well with the Committee for Economic Development’s goal: to grow our economy. Basically the government subsidizes the commodities: corn, soybeans, wheat, dairy, and cotton with our tax dollars, allowing the raw materials needed by processing and food manufactures to remain low. The average U.S. citizen spends less than 10% of his or her income on food. This leaves the rest to be spent on housing, transportation, and consumer goods. Many other nations spend an average of 40% of their income on food which limits discretionary spending.
The biggest drawback of our cheap food policy is that we starve the very hand that feeds us. Less than 1% of our population is involved in production agriculture and the trend is fewer and larger farms.
My own experience with conventional milk production was that money was a limiting factor in improving the practices of the farm. The organic milk market was about to change that situation. After going organic my pay price went up and remained stable.
Why the buzz over raw milk? What has happened to make what was once a low key and not even talked about subject into something trendy and talked about by the media (I have personally been contacted by magazines, newspapers, and a TV station wanting to do a story on raw milk)?
Let’s walk back in time to give you a better understanding of what has changed in America, back when 20% of America was involved in production agriculture (compared to today’s 1%.)
After World War II we were an agricultural country with some ramped up industrial development, due mostly to the war effort. Mover of Men and Mountains by R.G. Letourneau is a book that tells about the development of tractors, dozers, airplanes, ships, fuel, fertilizer, and chemicals which were in huge demand during the war. Now with America’s vast fertile land resource and all these labor saving machines the diverse, small, family farms started to grow. My Grandfather had milked 10 cows, raised peas, beans, potatoes, oats, maple syrup, fruit, chickens, pigs, and gardened with 2 teams of horses. Now he bought a WC Allis Chalmers tractor and the 4 boys said, “Dad, get more cows”. Cows were added, milking machines bought and soon the diverse family farm was a dairy farm with hay, pasture, and maple syrup. The horses were replaced by another tractor, and with 38 cows milking the sole income was from their milk. Of course now a bulk tank needed to be installed to meet new regulations.
At this time the Committee for Economic Development was formed to fix the farm ‘problem’: too many farmers on small farms, not making much money. The Committee was made up of the presidents of Sears, J.C. Penney’s, Chase Bank and many other big businesses, they discussed and agreed to set government policy to establish the Soil Bank. This program set aside idle land and paid the farmer dollars per acre to take land out of production and get a factory job. This encouraged farmers to leave farms and acquire higher paying jobs so they could buy refrigerators, TV’s, air condition, cars, etc. and grow the American Economy.
This was still going on when my Dad and I started the dairy in 1978 and many farm auctions occurred in the area as farmer after farmer stopped milking cows and took off-farm jobs. The remaining farms added more cows and the trend continues today as America only has 45,344 dairy farms milking a total of 9,257,000 cows producing 206,046 million lbs. of milk. As this Industrial Revolution was changing our farms many new technologies were coming along to increase production; rBST was developed to increase milk yield and brought about the first major reaction of the consumer to the industrialized food system. Organic Dairy, which set specific regulations for milk production, was born out of the rBST issue.
Milk is a loss leader in the food industry with many stores selling milk below cost to get customers to purchase their groceries at that store. As farms became fewer and larger in scale, the retailing sector likewise consolidated. The old Mom and Pop’s grocery store in town has disappeared and now we have super Walmart’s selling groceries as well as a few larger chains or grocery stores.
Consolidation and mergers have gone on in cooperatives, processers, and retailers to the point that the consumers of today have very few choices outside of these huge food companies. The farmers also face fewer choices in the marketplace, which limits their profitability.
So why the increasing demand for raw milk today? Our food system has changed dramatically from the day when most families grew a garden and canned or froze their own vegetables. The local grocery store is gone and for many the local dairy farm is either gone or has 1500 cows and milks three times a day with a huge labor force. People are experiencing health issues and are often prescribed drugs for the rest of their lives to treat the symptoms of diabetes, auto-immunes diseases, allergies, and the plague of obesity.
A majority of today’s consumers want food that tastes good, is clean and wholesome, and will bless them with health and strength to live. What can be more valuable than a healthy body that will work and thrive and sleep well after a hard day of work?
I see a new interest in nutrition and pure food for health while at the same time people are growing increasingly more cautious of preservatives, additives, coloring, GMOs and any un-natural treatments of food.
The question people are asking is what food will nourish my body and give me health? Weston A. Price wrote the book, “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” that answers this question. A dentist from Chicago, in 1930 he and his wife travelled the world and photographed isolated groups of people who ate unprocessed foods. He found no cavities, no diabetes, tuberculosis, or reproductive problems. The offspring of these people, who moved to the sea shore and ate our modern diet of bleached flour, refined sugar, and processed foods, showed many cavities, diabetes, TB, and reproductive problems. The health issues people are experiencing are causing them to search for better food.
About 2006 a consumer came to the farm asking to purchase raw milk. I had stopped selling raw milk when the milk inspector informed me years prior that I needed a permit to do so. After having the cows tested for Tuberculosis and enrolling in Quality Milk Production Services I was selling raw milk again. The sales in New York State of raw milk are limited to the farm itself, so all consumers must drive or walk to the farm. I must say that the most rewarding part of selling raw milk is the relationships that develop with the neighbors.
As long as people eat and drink there will always be demand for raw milk from healthy, grazed cows. How and where will this milk be available? The first hurdle to jump in selling raw milk is the laws of the state. These laws change from time to time but this is a snapshot of what was in effect in 2010-2013. After obtaining a license to sell raw milk I began to educate myself about the basic pathogens that are tested for by the NYS Dept. of Ag and Markets: Campylobacter, Salmonella, E-coli, E-coli 0157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus. I had been milking cows since 1978 and was familiar with raw bacteria counts, somatic cell counts, tests for butterfat and added water, but never before knew about the pathogens. I read the “Untold Story of Milk” by Ron Schmid and learned even more about the complex make-up of milk. Raw milk researchers in 1938 found two amazing enzymes that kill bad bacteria. Lacto peroxidase and Lactoferrin are present in raw milk to fight pathogens in different ways. Lacto peroxidase uses free radicals to destroy bad bacteria. Lactoferrin in milk takes iron away from pathogens and carries it through the gut wall into the blood stream. In 2004 the FDA approved Lactoferrin to be used to kill E.coli 0157:H7 contamination in the meat industry.
I see real opportunity for small family dairy farms to once again thrive by direct marketing their products to the consumers. Joseph Heckman from Rutgers University wrote an article illustrating the economic potential of a twenty-cow raw milk dairy in New Jersey. The key is clean raw milk near a population large enough to support selling all your milk raw. As with any successful direct marketing venture you need large numbers of customers because fresh farm milk has a short shelf life. If the farm is diversified and has a variety of products this will help bring more customers and provide alternate uses for milk. Cheese making and pigs are a natural fit for dairy farms. If you milked only 20 cows in a grass based dairy and sold 20,000 gallons of raw milk at $5.00 per gallon your annual gross income would be $100,000. If you charged $7 per gallon your gross income would be $140,000.That’s selling 55 gallons of milk per day which may be difficult unless you are near a large population. You need about 400 customers buying 1 gallon per week. That’s a lot of people to deal with and not all farmers are interested in marketing the product they produce. I am not suggesting that everyone sell raw milk, but I would like to share some information about our current market conditions in the United States. Conventional milk producers are producing milk in 2015 at a loss. The pay price went up over $24.00/cwt. in 2014 as a result of record exports and now is below $17.00cwt., which is not enough for farmers with debt to stay in business.
Organic milk is experiencing growing demand and offers more stable pricing than conventional. Many times a small farm will experience difficulty finding a market for their milk if they are not convenient to an existing truck route. We need to provide an opportunity for everyone who wants to make quality milk to have a market. I have had several people call that want to start a small dairy, but can’t find a market for milk. It would be beneficial to have a variety of opportunities for farmers to market their products. America has encouraged fewer and larger farms by providing subsidies, cost sharing and grants to promote large scale food production. These are some of the hidden costs of our current food system, but what about soil erosion, water pollution, and health issues such as diabetes and obesity. Nutritious food produced on a farm that stewards the land in a sustainable, healthy way for the animals and nourishes the people should be encouraged.
The economic opportunities in agriculture are huge, but at the same time very much limited by our food safety requirements. We have a raw milk permit and have sold milk for 37 years with no illness, yet are limited to on-farm sales only. Why would the government subsidize big business and limit small business under the food safety ruse? Let’s look at the potential gains awaiting a new approach to our food system. With over 3,000,000 acres of idle land growing golden rod and thorn brush in New York alone we could encourage families to grow food on the local level which would provide jobs, build strong families, grow our rural economies, improve the health of our people, allow better stewardship of our land and encourage small local businesses, butcher shops, markets, and strengthen communities.
For many years our society has chosen the ever-widening path of cheap food, increased dependency on government debt and empty promises. Today people are choosing the narrow path of healthy food, returning to family values and the growing demand for raw milk. People’s willingness to go out of their way to find it is the beginning of a new food system based on quality, freshness, health, and a relationship with the farmer who is willing to explain his methods of production, connecting the consumer directly to the stewardship of the land. Consumers voting with their dollar will bring us to the place where many small, family dairy farms producing high quality milk will again be supplying their community with nature’s most nourishing food. We have been told repeatedly by the media that raw milk is dangerous. “The lie is but for a moment, but truth endures forever. All truth passes through three stages.
“First, it is ridiculed
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer.
We are about to enter the third stage with raw milk and perhaps GMOs too.
I have great hope for the future and hope American consumers recognize the power of their vote expressed with each dollar spent on food. Where you buy your food will determine the food system of the future. It’s time to choose who you will serve.
