{"id":784,"date":"2011-10-14T14:57:04","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T20:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=784"},"modified":"2012-01-13T10:57:42","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T17:57:42","slug":"idaho-dairy-farmers-struggle-to-find-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2011\/10\/14\/idaho-dairy-farmers-struggle-to-find-optimism\/","title":{"rendered":"Idaho Dairy Farmers Struggle to Find Optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Courtesy Bettencourt Dairies LLC<\/p>

Luis Bettencourt working at one of his 11 dairies in southern Idaho<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s hard to find optimism about the state of Idaho\u2019s dairy industry among the very people who\u00a0operate farms, milk cows, and try to make a living selling their product.\u00a0 The Idaho Dairymen’s Association<\/a> reports there were 569 dairies in the state as of September 30th<\/sup>, 2011. That\u2019s a significant drop from a few years ago when in 2008, 800 dairies were licensed to sell milk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone would want to get into a losing business,\u201d says Sharon Bettencourt. She and her husband Luis own one of the largest dairy operations in Idaho.\u00a0 They have 60,000 cows spread across 11 facilities.\u00a0 \u201cAt this point, we are trying to hang on to what we do have\u2026there is no room for growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the number of dairies is on the decline in Idaho, the number of milk cows and the production of things like milk, cheese and cottage cheese are on the rise.\u00a0 According to a study from Boise State University\u2019s College of Business & Economics<\/a> which looked at the economic impacts of the dairy industry in Idaho, the number of dairy cows here is up more than 35-percent.<\/p>\n

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John Brown \/ Getty Images<\/p>

In 2008 there were 550,333 dairy cows in Idaho<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe producer has to be better at making more milk,\u201d says Jeff Ackerman who is the dairy operations manager at Bettencourt Dairies<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cProduction has grown because economics have gotten harder — we\u2019re producing more milk out of the same number of cows, we have to, to squeak out any margins\u201d says Ackerman.<\/p>\n

There are several reasons Idaho dairymen are feeling the pinch.\u00a0 One deals with the complicated pricing structure of milk and other dairy products.\u00a0 Cheese and milk function much like other globally traded commodities. Dairymen can\u2019t name their own price based on their costs.\u00a0 At a time when the price of feeding a dairy cow has nearly doubled, that makes it tough Ackerman says.<\/p>\n

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Tim Flach \/ Getty Images<\/p>

Holstein-Friesian cows being miked in dairy<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe cost of production has more than kept pace with the milk price. It\u2019s outpaced it.\u00a0 Good quality alfalfa hay cost $150 per ton three years ago. Today it\u2019s as high as $275,” says Ackerman.<\/p>\n

Plus, Idaho consumers\u00a0pay less for a gallon of milk than most places in the U.S.\u00a0 A gallon of whole milk costs just under $3.00 in Idaho, while the national average is more like $3.70.<\/p>\n

For a small dairy, like the one Stacie Ballard and her husband Steve operate<\/a> in Gooding, Idaho, rising feed prices and stagnant prices paid to farmers meant they needed to diversify.\u00a0 The Ballard’s have 60 cows and make cheese that is sold at local markets around the northwest. \u00a0Plus, they run\u00a0tours of their dairy and they are trying to make it a destination for school groups and tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to teach what I knew about the dairy industry\u201d Ballard says, \u201cwe\u2019re looking more at getting into tourism and retail dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hang-up for the Ballard’s is financing.\u00a0 They\u2019ve tried to get a loan for the last three years to expand their dairy tours.\u00a0 \u201cIf I went to the bank in 2007 they would have been falling all over themselves to give me a loan to expand my business\u201d says Ballard, \u201cnow, it\u2019s just harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Ackerman at Bettencourt Dairies says even if a farmer has the capital to expand, he wouldn\u2019t recommend it.\u00a0 \u201cI wouldn\u2019t get into the business here, not in Idaho\u201d, Ackerman says. \u00a0\u201cMilk is too cheap and when you look at the input costs and what the average producer is getting paid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at the prices dairy farmers received for all milk in September 2010 and the preliminary numbers from September 2011.\u00a0 Idaho farmers\u00a0receive less per 100 pounds of milk (Hundredweight or CWT) than dairy farmers in 22 other states.<\/p>\n

[spreadsheet key=”0AiLU6Cs5LWZIdGJ1ZU5fTDZPZk16cDQwMDlwb29fbXc” source=”” sheet=0 filter=0 paginate=0 sortable=1]<\/p>\n

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to find optimism about the state of Idaho\u2019s dairy industry among the very people who\u00a0operate farms, milk cows, and try to make a living selling their product.\u00a0 The Idaho Dairymen’s Association reports there were 569 dairies in the state as of September 30th, 2011. That\u2019s a significant drop from a few years ago […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[49,97],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}