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The dairy thing
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bsfarms
Posted 3/18/2018 07:33 (#6648618 - in reply to #6648513)
Subject: RE: The dairy thing



south central WI
minn gopher - 3/18/2018 05:13

prfarms - 3/18/2018 04:51

I disagree the business model that large dairys use only works with cheap foreign labor. If they paid a american standard of living price of milk would be up to where a small dairy would be viable and no one would stand behind someone else's cow when it could be their own. If what you say where true why didn't the megas exist before the huge influx of foreign labor ?????? The meat paking plants did exist and Americans wanted those jobs , they also paid more before the Vietnamese started flodding them after the war and lowering wages and working conditions, that was just the start then mexicans in th 80s and now middle eastern and african.


Cheap labor. There is no such thing. Maybe at one point there was. Not now. To much competition. Technology is a much much bigger reason it is way easier to run a large dairy now versus 25 years ago.
u

I would have to agree. I remember when I rode the bus way back in the 80's. During the spring thru fall there would be a lot more kids on the bus due to immigrants coming up to work the vegetable fields. There has always been immigrants or illegals working in ag. Technology is allowing farms to get to the size they are at. There were mega dairies in the past also. We tend to look at our time as one in crisis. It's always been that way. Grab a magazine from the 60s and it will have an article about large farms, kids not wanting to farm, low prices, etc. Farms grow along with technology, then find labor to support it. A few decades ago a 1000 cow farm was huge. It was limited by ability to milk the cows quick, but also on putting up feed quickly and also hauling the manure away. We now have huge machinery to make feed and manure issues a minor problem to overcome.

72+ cow rotary parlors require minimal labor. Now they are coming out with robots to replace the labor on the rotary parlors. This will allow dairies to get even larger. The biggest challenge most dairies face is labor IMO. If they can pay a little more for equipment but not have to worry about someone not showing up, they will. Milking is like crop farming and beef. Genetics are improving allowing us to produce more with less. Equipment is improving allowing farms to do more per person. We are understanding more about the plant or animal to reach peak production. Farmers need to keep on top of the game if they want to survive. It's almost impossible to survive on a 40 cow dairy or a 100 acre crop farm. Even without immigrants (legal or illegal) it would be hard to make it. Technology has improved so much I the past 20 years it just takes more to survive. It has been this way forever.
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