Group Marketing Matters To Dairymen

By Brad Rach

We’ve all seen some big changes in dairy farm size. One thing has not changed, however. National Farmers is just as much about family farming today as it ever was.

Here’s a good example of what I mean. Last month’s magazine featured the Breitenmoser farm that milks 460 cows in Wisconsin. The family owns the farm, is fully involved in its management, and does the day-to-day chores of caring for animals and raising feed. If that’s not a family farm, I don’t know what is.

Too often, we let farm size be the only measure we use in defining family farms. In today’s dairy economy, that’s a mistake that hurts every one of our members regardless of how many cows they milk.

Why do I say that? Markets. The days when we had plenty of small plants competing for our milk are long gone. Today’s plants, especially the newer ones, are giants compared to what they used to be.

You can be a pretty good sized family dairy and still be too small for the biggest plants to be interested in doing business with you.

Every family dairy farm, 50 cows or 500 cows, faces the same danger of being squeezed out of milk markets. More than ever, we need volume to stay in the game.

Volume helps keep trucking costs down and allows us to better negotiate with very large processors. No family farm, acting alone, has that kind of volume. It must come from cooperation among farmers.

Let’s always remember, as we continue to add new members to our wonderful organization, that every family dairy farm we represent, regardless of size, builds market access that benefits everyone.