Last updated on 2013.03.31
Oh, the myopia! In his Thursday article on the battle over a proposed 7000-head dairy in Hanson County, intrepid reporter Tom Lawrence gets mega-dairy operator and South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture Walt Bones on the record as "puzzled":
Bones said he is puzzled by the strong opposition to Crinion's proposed dairy.
"Agriculture is the only industry that is consistently investing in rural counties and rural areas," he said [Tom Lawrence, "Dairy Battle Divides Hanson County," Mitchell Daily Republic, 2011.12.08].
Secretary Bones, please tell me you aren't involved in the governor's economic development efforts. Are you suggesting that Governor Daugaard (a.k.a. your boss) is wasting his time trying to recruit brake makers and non-ag CEOs to bring their operations to South Dakota? Are you saying that Bill Janklow didn't really convince the finance industry to invest in our rural state? Are you saying that the Sanford medical empire isn't a key part of economic development in the state?
When a guy has nothing but a hammer in his toolbox, he can't figure out why you wouldn't want to hang drywall with nails.
Meanwhile, Hanson County Auditor Lisa Trabing unwittingly suggests that we all need to take a closer look at the Hanson County Dairy:
Trabing said while opponents of the dairy have been active and vocal, other local residents haven't made their views known.
"You know, the group of Hanson County Concerned Citizens all live around the dairy," she said. "I don't ever hear anybody from Emery about the dairy for or against it. It's the people who are around the dairy" [Lawrence, 2011.12.08].
Just let that one sink in.
Cory, Bones is right. Brake making, credit card rip-offs, and the Corporate Medical Establishments are mainly for the urban areas. Unfortunately, Bones believes that rural South Dakota also has to go down the "Big Business with the help of Big Government" urban economic path of serfdom.
SD agriculture takes a step backward when the owner of the livestock is no longer doing the majority of the chores. Are the owners going to be living on site or better are ALL of the owners going to be living on site. Would you want to be next door to 7000 dairy cattle? If so, let's place it next door to you. Let's place it next door to the duck pond by the state capitol. That way Walt and Dennis can see/smell first hand real progress.
At the organic conference in SF last Monday, it was noted that organic milk now comprises 5% of all milk in the nation-up from just 1/2 of 1% a few years ago. That's a growth curve worth taking a look at. South Dakota has 5 organic dairies while Wisconsin has over a thousand. In SD, we tend to get behind the wrong thing-unfortunately this time it's behind the rear ends of 7000 cows.
The dairy series was a lot of work but i think it brought a lot of things to light. Cory, you have done a great job scrutinizing the dairies; i just wanted to get the dairy industry's dramatic evolution on the record.
We will do more stories, too.
It's a hot topic in Hanson County and around the state and country.
I grew up on a dairy farm, milked cows for years and owned a dozen head when i was at SDSU. It's a whole new world now, but a big reason for the change is the simple fact that people don't want to trudge down to the barn two or three times a day.
I admire the workers who are willing to do so to provide us with the milk we drink and eat in its many forms while also feeling sorry for their long, cold workdays. Are they being taken advantage of or are they getting an opportunity to make a decent living?
And frankly, the mega-dairies I toured didn't smell bad at all. I wonder if the small dairies can make that claim?
Intrepid? Thanks.
Reporter? Not as much.
But i have been an editor for more than 20 years and am now the assistant editor at the MDR, South Dakota's best newspaper.
Here's the whole Dairy Revolution series.
http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/tag/tag/dairy%20series/
Tom,
Thanks for doing this great series on dairy. You are to be complimented. The real(humor) answer to what is too big is any operation with 100acres more than my operation or one who has 10 cows more than me. I believe strongly in the concept of family farming(that might be different than saying family farmer or farm). That is where the farm family provides most or all of the labor, most or all of the capital, and most or all of the mgt. Not one or two of these things but all 3. Last Monday at the organic conference, the use of robots in dairy was shared. Cows are milked 24/7 with the operator able to be gone most all the time-enjoying family life or attending to other chores. The Stensland Dairy from Larchwood, Iowa milk about 180 cows, organic-all done by two brothers. With the use of the robots, they have eliminated 2 full time people(they do it all themselves), enjoy family life more, and can manage other things on the farm better.
What concerns me about the 7000 cow dairy is that we have substituted capital for farm families. 70 families milking 100 cows is a larger economic impact than one 7000 cow operation. The only reason this large model works is that replace farm families with hired help-then pay them on the cheap. It's what we want and how we promote that gets us to where we are. There are better directions to head than what Walt Bones envisions.
The robotic milkers seem fascinating. A farm by Chancellor uses one.The problem: They cost $160,000!
I wonder as the robotic price drops, as it surely will, if more small dairies will emerge. The price of milk: $21 per hundredweight (pounds) may draw some people back, but the feed costs are also high. One good side: dairy cows are wonderful, peaceful, smart animals.
Darn right, Charlie! As Tom aptly notes the world has changed. But those changes mean that fewer people are really investing in rural America. Walt Bones couldn't be more wrong about the dairy industry. They aren't really investing in rural South Dakota. They are exploiting it. They are making lots of money but sharing that wealth with fewer South Dakotans. We used to have an industry with lots of small producers who were their own bosses and who spent their money in their community. There are now probably fewer net jobs in dairy. There are definitely fewer boss-man jobs. The industry has a few guys at the top exploiting a large immigrant labor pool with really low wages. $10 an hour? Six days off after working six-day weeks and long shifts all year? That's grossly disproportionate; I'd think folks working that hard would deserve more time off. Those workers then spend less of their wages in our communities.
As the article says, those workers also participate less in the public life of our communities. They keep out of sight. They don't become members of the Chamber of Commerce or the Kiwanis or other community organizations. They don't participate in campaigns or comment on blogs or run for office. They don't invigorate the cultural life of the community the way that small independent farmers like Charlie Johnson do.
An investment makes a community stronger. Big dairy makes the South Dakota community weaker.
Tom Lawrence is due several compliments for his series on South Dakota dairies. I'd give the MDR high grades for enterprising stories like the dairy series and the John Mathis [Mt. Vernon] acquittal.
I agree with Sec. Bones about investment in rural counties; if you don't think this is really "investing," try borrowing a fraction of what is being sunk into eastern South Dakota dairies.
I've visited with the several of the dairy operators who immigrated from Europe [including Michael Crinion] . . . they all refer to the stifling climate in Europe where you're limited as to how much land or how many critters you possess. Thankfully, this is still truly "the land of opportunity" for folks all over the planet.
Hang on, Patrick: are you saying we can't count on any other industries to invest in rural areas? What exactly is Bones trying to say?
I grew up on a farm and had a farm of my own and to many of those people think that farming is the center of the world. Hello, there is a world out there. When I went to college in Michigan they thought that the world revolved around the autoindustry. They were wrong also.
Tom wrote a great series and explained some things I didn't know. As a resident of Hanson County this issue is a hot topic but from what I can gather most of the people I've talked to are against it. Some of the people are concerned about the amout of water that will be used (I fall into this catagory), some are are worried about the use of a TIF and a lot of people are concerned (rightly or wrongly) about the illegal immigrents that might be moving to Hanson County. I think if Mr. Bones is surprised about the oppoosition he should come to Hanson County for a town hall meeting
Good point, Roger: we all need our professions and passions, but we also need a good liberal arts education to help us all see beyond our everyday world to understand the diverse needs and desires of others. Policymakers in particular need to be able to see beyond their own farm fences or office doors.
Owen, you should invite Bones to the next commission meeting or concerned citizens' gathering dealing with the dairy. There are lots of valid concerns. I'll even grant that worries about illegal immigration are valid, since it's pretty clear that big ag relies on an immigrant workforce that often attracts illegals. No one should be eager to recruit an industry with a record of criminal activity.
I grew up on a dairy farm. I got to milk cows twice a day 365 days a year on my parents farm. NO TIME OFF...EVER. After the cows were gone we took our first family vacation together when I was 21.
I am glad to have had the experience, but I would prefer not to do it again. It's got to be one of the tougher ways to make a living unless you have someone else to do the chores for you. How much of the decline in small dairies is more related to the number of hours you have to put in
Michael is spot on. How many of these small dairies milked cows until the kids left and went to college and then sold out. Exactly where is this list of young people that are churning to milk a minimal number of cows? I don't think they are there!
I liken a dairy to be married twice, once to your wife and once to your cows.
Very few young people aspire or want that life style, I am sure there are a few but not in the numbers to make a large difference in the number of cows milked in this state.
Farm beginning classes from all over the midwest have aspiring farmers wanting to get into farming including dairy. What some may view as a burden, obstacle, or bad experience is a challege or opportunity for others. The reason dairy is going mega big is twisted economics. Cheap hired labor is being used to replace family farming. What it costs to keep a family in a reasonable lifestyle and income can not match up with the cheap pay given immigrant labor.
"Spot on" about what? His memory of hard work on the dairy? Fine. But what's Michael's and Gary's point? That our desire for easier jobs means we should embrace massive factory dairies exploiting an immigrant workforce with low wages and long hours?
Charlie's point is far more relevant: cheap hired labor undermines our economy and our community. We need to look for economic models that give all members of the workforce better opportunities. Why doesn't Walt Bones hire a larger workforce, three daily eight-hour shifts, with decent wages, benefits, and time off so folks can participate in community life? Why doesn't he make it possible for his workers to enjoy the same amount of time with their families that Bones enjoys as a manager with a cushy office and time to play politics in Pierre? Two reasons: (1) milk would cost $6 a gallon, and (2), then the working class would gain power in politics by having time to participate in the system.
Milk prices are not set by the farmer. The dairies are paid whatever the market dictates. It was not always this way. There used to be price supports at certain percentage of parity. The gov't later paid farmers to sell their milk cows off.
Just because someone has the desire to start a dairy farm does not mean they have much of a chance of doing so. The price of admission is too high.
...and the state raises that price of admission by favoring big dairy operators with state assistance in financing and immigration.
Organic dairy is flourishing in Wisconsin mostly with small to moderate size herds. Farms with as little as 80 acres using intensive grass grazing rotations are common. The farm will usually buy grains from off the farm. The family concentrates on the cows and pasture. Often, they may use seasonal milking where they dry up the cows all at the same time and freshen two months later allowing for a seasonal break. Many of these operators because of close proximity to each other share a milking pool where employees or family members time share on labor so that families can take trips/vacation/ or make appts. while having dependable help back at home.
My serious point about family farming is this----there is certain and very viable snyergy when one family controls all 3 aspects of a free enterprise system-labor, mgt., and capital. Whatever they do or for the operation affects the operation in a positive way since they benefit or are harmed by what they do themselves. In family farming the holders of capital would never do anything to exploit labor since they are the labor force themselves.
Did you ever work at a family owned dairy Cory? Because I would like to compare notes with you on your experiences and mine until I left for college.
Nope, no milking experience at all, Wayne. How does my personal experience affect the truth of the phenomenon Charlie identifies, capital shifting from numerous small, independent owners to a concentration of big industrialists exploiting a cheap labor force that contributes less to the community's well-being?
It was not the lack of capital that led to the elimination of the family dairy farm. It was a lack of a labor supply. When I decided to not be a dairy farmer my folks sold out. My folks had all the money they needed and access to much more. I disagree with what you have postulated. I was a small town banker for many years. Never had to foreclose on a dairy farmer, they had cash flow. The work was just too damn hard.
Dairy work 15 or 20 miles north of Winner would surely be in an area with no interested labor and isolated enough to nearly drive a person crazy.
Even so, I suspect our society would be better off with more small dairy farms if a labor exchange system of some type would allow some reasonable breaks from the daily grind. Dairies, Motels, Hotels, Cafes, all have daily unremitting drudgery as part of the routine.
Are you saying, Wayne, that small dairies now can access sufficient capital to compete with big dairies? I'm not postulating that lack of capital put small dairies out of business. I don't think Charlie is, either. Charlie and I are saying that the concentration of capital in the hands of a few owners like Bones, Crinion, Millner, et al. creates an unhealthy dynamic in rural communities, at least one that is less healthy than the dynamic that existed when there were more and smaller dairies.
Motels, hotels, cafés: note that those industries, too, all exploit cheap labor. Odd: the work is drudgerous, so why doesn't the market have to pay people more to do such work?
Many times over my 38 years of married life I have asked my wife is she would have wanted to be a dairy farmer's wife. I get the roll of the eyes, the downturn of the mouth and a sudden exhale. "No way!" has always been her response, and yes, 18 miles North of Winner was pretty desolate. Makes Madison a metropolis. :-)
No, I am not saying that there is sufficient capital to start small dairies at this time, I am saying that people will not do it because of the work load. So why bother? My father started a cheese plant for a market for his milk. Heck, most of the cheese plants are boarded up now, doing the same thing that all the silos in eastern SD are doing. Memorials to a time gone by.
There is a dynamic in places like Wisconsin that is lacking here in SD. At the organic conference in Sioux Falls, a recruiter from Organic Valley Dairy was there. He was asked if officials from SD had been in contact with him. The answer was no. Wayne, there is many couples who would like to enter the dairy business--we need to be promoters.
The danger of mega dairies is that they are own by a piece of paper(artificial entity). None of them are owned by a human person. There is no individual responsibility. What the investors are saying about risk versus safety for the environment, they are unwilling to back it up themselves. Nor do they agree to be bonded. Big reason--surety companies do not want the business. If the investors and insurance companies do not want to assume the risk, why should the general public especially the local residents. Again, if you favor big dairies, be prepared to say you would allow it a half mile down the road from you.
There is no money to pay high wages when corn, beans and hay are so high. It makes more economic sense to rid yourself of the livestock and chores and make the same amount of money (or more) with less effort.
Not everyone likes smelling of cow manure during and after work.
...but the point Charlie is making is that there are plenty of folks in Wisconsin who are willing to do the work, to be their own bosses, and to do it on a small scale. That economic model is still viable, and it's better for communities (a point which none of this complaining about how hard the work is does not refute). And tellingly, as Charlie points out in his latest comment, our state officials are ignoring that model. They aren't trying to recruit small successful organic dairy operators who would be a better investment in our small rural communities. Our state officials are focusing on mega-dairies that bring more pollution and more concentration of capital.
The industrialization of agriculture has just started. I don't agree with it but we are not going to stop it. In 20 years, maybe we will have only 10% of the farmers we have now. This will happen no matter what the state does.
Michael, Charlie is pointing straight at a viable, profitable counterexample to your assertion. You seem to be accepting that mega-dairies are worse for small communities but excusing them by saying nothing else is possible. That's exactly the myopia that Secretary Bones is expressing.
"The industrialization of agriculture has just started. I don’t agree with it but we are not going to stop it. In 20 years, maybe we will have only 10% of the farmers we have now. This will happen no matter what the state does."
The industrialization of agriculture started with the GOP "Young executives" report about 60 years ago. Nearly unlimited ag payments are also a factor. No entity of any ag kind should get more than the equivalent of two minimum wage jobs. Our representatives in DC, Democratic or Republican, listen only to big corporate agriculture because they get significant contributions from them.
We will not see rational policy coming out of DC until we have public financing of campaigns with limits on spending and we decide that corporations do not have personhood.
We are losing "The Republic" given to us ..or more correctly, it is being taken away from us by spineless legislators addicted to corporate contributions.
Water law will determine which industries survive East River. Pumping pristine aquifers dry while floodwater raises ocean levels will not continue while there are environmental lawyers.
It's just starting. Smart farmers will learn rainwater catchment or die.
The ultimate irony in all this is all the US propaganda that attacked the inefficiency of Soviet collective farms while big money and addicted congressmen were busy getting the US into Corporate farms which differ little from Soviet Collective Farms.
Secretary Bones means [I suspect] that in a preponderance of towns under 1,000 in South Dakota [or outside them] it's the ag sector that is making sizeable investments; witness all the farmers' coops building additional grain storage or loading capacity. At least three facilities for loading 110-car shuttle trains are under construction right now. It's front-page news when a modest fabricating plant decides to locate in a rural South Dakota community. By far, the large investments in rural South Dakota communities and counties are being made by Agriculture.
If his statement is merely descriptive, it's still off. Agriculture is not the only game in these towns. As Charlie has made clear, it's the consolidation of Big Ag that's been killing most of these towns for decades.
But does Bones offer his statement with any normative policy intent? Is he trying to tell us that we should be thankful Big Ag doles out even these crappy jobs and just accept the harms involved? An "is" doesn't make an "ought".
Doug is right. As time goes on, our agriculture looks more like the old Soviet Union while eastern Europe turns more of their agriculture into smaller parcels with more individual ownership. One begins to wonder who "won the cold war?"
Political and ag leaders should have a vision as to where our rural areas head off into the future. Do we "invest" in people or do we invest in capital to replace people in production agriculture?
I don' think that the state has enough money to help young farmers out.
Our friend Mark stopped by this morning. A parcel of land near Egan just went for $440 per acre cash rent. Mark was telling us how ag land near Hull IA sold for $20,000 an acre.
Guess I may need to raise cash rent rate and sold some land for a fraction of current sales price.
However, I suspect an agricultural bubble is about to burst.
Let's just say that those top rate were to drop in half: that would still be $10,000 to buy and $220 to rent.
Crop insurance subsidies, lack of an estate tax in this state, direct payments, ethanol tax credits, renewable fuel standards are all taxpayer(the meek and modest pay) giveaways that has prompted wealth in SD agriculture to flow into fewer and fewer hands.