Glenn County Dairy Farms Closing

I think I can answer these questions! The regulation that is most significant at this time in the dairy industry is the "General Order of Waste Discharge Requirements for Existing Milk Cow Dairies." Dairy farmers are required to make huge investments in record keeping, reporting, and infrastructure changes to help protect water quality. Of course water quality is important, but it is very difficult to invest the money in facilities when each dairy cow is LOSING $100 per month! That adds up fast! This regulation is estimated to cost about $30,000 per year WITHOUT any infrastructure improvements. The cost is less for the smaller dairies typical of the North Valley, but significant nonetheless. This year, all dairies will complete a Waste Management Plan that is certified by an engineer. After that plan is completed dairies may have to make investments in storage and/or irrigation by July 2011. The Air Resources Board has also introduced a diesel truck rule that will require some dairy farmers to retrofit or replace large trucks. Luckily, we are blessed with decent air quality in most of the North Valley, so there are some exceptions for that. There's still lots of paperwork and record keeping though! The main reason 2009 was such a tough year is because the price that farmers receive for their milk crashed. At one point, dairies were receiving about $9 for 100 pounds of milk that cost about $16 to produce. Unfortunately, you can't turn off or "fallow" a cow! Dairy farmers had to continue to care for their animals even though they were losing money on each one of them. This price crash was mostly related to the global recession and the crash of export markets. Demand tanked but the milk was still flowing. As far as farm size goes- we are seeing a trend towards larger family farms. All of the dairies in the North Valley and over 95% of those in CA are family owned. Consumers can use their purchasing power to support CA products and go for extra CA cheese on that pizza!

I tend to believe the reasons given in the article are likely accurate. However, I'm not associated with the Dairy Industry in any way(so happycows is likely in a position to know better). My view is based largely on the fact that regulations are killing many industries in California, including those I'm personally familiar with, and so it is quite believable to me that similar problems plague the dairy industry. In addition, there's likely more than one significant negative influence on that industry. I too would like to see more data and references on this issue. 14 dairy farms closing in a county as small as Glenn seems worthy of much investigation. At a minimum, could we get references to the troubling regulations and certifications mentioned? Greatly interested in more details. Here's a link to an article from the California Farm Bureau Federation on what appears to be the same topic(a bit old, from 2008): http://bit.ly/akV2w5

The closure of 14 dairy farms in Glenn County is yet another sign of what corporate consolidation is doing to our food suppliers. The big guys are getting bigger and the small guy is getting snuffed out. The whole industry of agriculture is going through dramatic changes and to simply portray these closures as an environmental or efficiency problem is doing an injustice to farmers and the consumers who depend on them. Your newscast downplayed the crisis that is taking place in the dairy industry today. What are the new environmental regulations and who are the “certified” people that Pat Schager mentions in the story? I think you owe it to your viewers to dig a little deeper into this story. Maybe a series?