The Hill's cows getting a sip of water while waiting for milking (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
In many areas of the country, small farms
are now the exception, not the norm. Farming,
especially with livestock, can mean thousands and
thousands of animals, and often distant, corporate
ownership. Even the smallest farms are pressured
to get bigger. So when a family decides to make
their farm smaller, they’re rebels. Kinna Ohman
reports:
Transcript
In many areas of the country, small farms
are now the exception, not the norm. Farming,
especially with livestock, can mean thousands and
thousands of animals, and often distant, corporate
ownership. Even the smallest farms are pressured
to get bigger. So when a family decides to make
their farm smaller, they’re rebels. Kinna Ohman
reports:
It’s five o’clock in the evening on the Hill’s dairy farm. Ray Hill just finished cleaning
out the milking equipment and is moving into the barn.
(sound of milking equipment and door)
Cows look around curiously, and afternoon light streams through the windows. Hill
moves comfortably among these cows, calling each of them by name, and cleans their
udders for milking.
(Ray describing the process)
Ray Hill and his wife Stephanie are full time farmers. They milk ten cows, twice a day.
They sell raw milk and yogurt directly from their farm. But getting to this point hasn’t
been easy. To survive, they’ve had to step away from the conventional approach to dairy
farming.
When the Hills got into farming eight years ago, they listened to the advice of farm
experts. They had more than forty cows, a tractor, and were selling their farm’s milk to the
regional processors.
But within a couple of years, they were deep in debt. Hill says the experts told him to get
more cows. He says he couldn’t see how that would help.
“Financially it just didn’t work. There wasn’t money to hire help. I had a couple of
kids and my wife and we were all running ragged and it just wasn’t fun. And there
were many days where I threatened to sell every cow in the barn.”
It’s common for farm experts and even bankers to push family farmers like the Hills to
‘get big or get out.’ Darrell Emmick’s with the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
He says he’s seen regions lose more than fifty percent of their dairy farms when using
this conventional standard.
“Getting bigger or get out really didn’t help a lot of the farmers. They got bigger
and they still went out of business.”
For a farm to get bigger, farmers confine hundreds or even thousands of dairy cows inside
large barns. That means farmers spend a lot of money and time bringing food to their
animals and hauling manure away.
Darrell Emmick says that model of agriculture started
in the 1940s when fuel was pretty cheap. But these days, it makes good economic sense
for farmers to go back to letting their milk cows out of the big barns to eat grass.
“Nothing can harvest a ton of feed any cheaper than the cow or the sheep or the
horse can by itself. Bringing food to animals is something I think we’re going to see a lot
less of, especially here and now with fuel prices going over four dollars a gallon.”
The Hill’s have made that switch on their farm. Ray Hill says his cows are healthier. He
believes their milk is better quality, too. And he’s excited about providing healthy
food for his community. Ray Hill says he wants their farm to be a place where people
come to buy quality food, and definately let him know if they have concerns.
“I want to have control over how I take care of my animals. I want to have control
over how I process or don’t process my milk. I want to have control over the price,
the quality. If there’s a quality issue, it’s up to me to take care of it, not say ‘let me
call so and so.’ I don’t think you can find anyone who’d that would tell you I’d
rather talk to a corporate person than the person who produced my food.”
But bucking against the system is not easy. There are days when no one comes to their
farm to buy their milk or yogurt. The Hills know they’re taking a risk. But they feel, at
least they’re not at the mercy of the industry, the banks and the whims of the market.
And for now, that’s worth it.
For The Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.