The price of milk going down may be great for your paycheck when you’re trying to stock the refrigerator, but stocking dairy barns is pricey and farmers are taking a huge hit.
“We’re being charged for milk that’s getting dumped. It’s just kind of a bad situation all around,” Andy Kammerer said.
Dairy farmers like Andy Kammerer and Eric Harman have had enough. They do what they love, but are tired of spending more money than they make.
“We keep having this every three years… our input costs are high now and the drops are getting longer,” Harman said. “You can’t get yourself back ahead of them. You’re borrowing money, taking out lines of credit as far as you can.”
Harman said it has been that way since he was a kid. It is a cyclical problem. He has 132 dairy cows in his barn, but the return on investment is virtually nonexistent.
Some farmers are making just $14,000 each year. Harman spends that in just one month to feed his cows.
“According to the extension office, break even cost is around $19/100 lbs,” Kammerer said. “I was as low as $13.80, so I mean I’m losing $5.20 for every hundred pounds of milk I sell, which is every 12 and a half gallons I sell. I’m losing that kind of money.”
The two have called lawmakers and are working to gather more farmers for a meeting to express their concerns.
“Just voicing my opinion and the sheer frustration that we’re dealing with,” Kammerer said. “At some points here we’ve dealt with 50% pay cut from 2014. Nobody else in this world would be willing to do that. What we do is a labor of passion and it’s definitely not for the money.”
The meeting is set for Friday, September 2nd at 12 p.m. in the Alexandria Fire Hall.
