The price of milk: Low for milk drinkers, but sinks family farms

With the price of milk low and feed and fuel costs spiraling, family dairy farms struggle to compete with large farms. In Vermont, the MacLaren family gives up dairy farming after three generations, joining the gradual national decline of small farms.

By The Associated Press / May 24, 2012

A drop in the price of milk this spring and soaring feed and fuel costs forced the MacLarens to give up dairy farming after three generations. Here, Mike MacLaren, left, and his brother, Steve, watch an auction at their farm in Plainfield, Vt. on May 16, 2012.

Toby Talbot/AP

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The MacLaren brothers are third-generation dairy farmers, but they will likely be the last in their family.

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After working all their lives on the hillside farm in Vermont that their grandfather bought in 1939, rising to milk cows at 3 a.m., even in blizzards and sub-zero temperatures, they decided to call it quits, auctioning off their roughly 200 cows and equipment ranging from stalls and hoof trimmers to tractors and steel pails.

The sale marked the end of the last dairy farm in Plainfield ? a small town that once had several dozen ? and the 14th dairy farm to go out of business in Vermont this year. A few small?dairies have opened, but overall, the number of farms continues to drop in a state long known for its milk and cheese. Farmers say they can't make ends meet when milk?prices are low and feed and fuel costs keep going up.

"The day of the small farms, I think, is gone," said Steve MacLaren, 54. "A lot of people are going to hold on as long as they can, but we decided not to. Why struggle on it any longer?"

Economic issues aside, the MacLarens are tired of being tied to the farm seven days a week. They plan to keep the land and grow feed ? corn and grass for hay and silage ? on more than 500 acres.

"No matter what, you've got a sick cow or a cow having a calf, you've gotta be around whether it's 1:00 in the morning, or it's whatever time, you've got to take care of them," said Michael MacLaren, 48. "But if you've got a tractor break down, you can walk away from it. It's just a long hard grind, and I decided I'd like a change."

While the number of dairy cows in the U.S. hasn't changed much, the number of dairy farms has been dropping as small farms either go out of business or consolidate to become more competitive and cost effective.

The number of dairy farms nationally has dropped from nearly 92,000 in 2002 to less than 70,000 in 2007, according to the last agricultural census, which is being updated this year.

That's not the whole picture though. The number of small farms, with 100 to 199 cows, fell from about 11,000 to about 9,000 during that time, while those with more than 1,000 cows grew from about 1,300 to almost 1,600.

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