The past five years have been rough on dairy farmers, and many are feeling the brunt of input costs. The COVID-19 pandemic and federal milk price regulations changing are some of the main issues impacting dairies financially.
Danny Munch, an American Farm Bureau Federation economist, says dairy producers are having a hard time just breaking even.
“So the ERS–economic research statistics show that on average, dairy farmers are losing over $6 per hundredweight, putting in about $27 a hundredweight and only coming back with $21 a hundredweight on average. For small farms under 50 cows, that jumps up to a loss of over $20 a hundredweight,” he said.
University of Minnesota Extension Dairy Specialist Brad Heins has seen dairies diversify to try to improve profitability and combat financial struggles, such as adding dairy-beef production to their operation or on-farm processing.
AFBG is working to help dairy farmers with federal milk pricing reform.
