We all just celebrated the Fourth of July as America’s holiday, which started in 1776 when the Continental Congress declared the 13 colonies’ separation from British rule with the Declaration of Independence.
Farming methods have undergone significant changes over the past 200+ years. In 1776, each family grew, hunted, processed and preserved their own food. They would barter for staple items like salt and sugar — a very independent lifestyle.
Today, Americans rely on US farmers to feed them. Each American farmer provides enough food annually to feed 170 people. We hear all the rumblings about corporate food production, but in reality, 96% of American farms today are family-owned and many are multigenerational, with some farms owned by the same family lineage for over 200 years.
These family-owned farms are specialized today in growing a crop (wheat, soybeans, corn) or livestock (dairy, beef, hogs, chickens). As a nation, we as consumers are very dependent upon our farmers who provide us with abundant, nutritious and inexpensive food.
The U.S. family spends 14% of their income on food, compared to many other countries that spend in excess of 40% of their family income on food. Dairy farmers are very good at taking care of their dairy cows, which produce high-quality, nutritious dairy products.
Today’s dairy farmers rely on a complex web of resources to succeed. Full-time farmers must trust and accept many uncontrollable risks that require them to depend on the resources of weather, land, people, livestock, markets and finances. This article will review some dairy farmer attributes and associated business factors that successful dairy farm owners possess.
Natural resources: Then versus now. The natural resources of America are abundant. We are truly blessed as a nation to have these resources. When our founding fathers separated from British rule, they had little knowledge of the abundant natural resources of the New World.
America’s dominance in the world today is in part due to the resources of fertile soil, fresh water, gas/oil energy, minerals, abundant wildlife and forests. America would not have the freedoms and independence we do today if not for farmers and ranchers who properly manage the abundant natural resources that God has so richly blessed America with.
A dairy farm is built upon quality land and soil where forages and grains are grown and fed to their dairy cows. Quality soil is the foundation for profitable multigenerational farms. My father taught me the value of quality soil. He never called it dirt.
Dad was a soil scientist in the 1950s, who walked the farm lands working for the Ohio Department of Soil Conservation, conducting soil analysis of the land. With an auger and topo map in hand, he would walk every farm and plunge the soil auger into the topsoil layers to evaluate for soil quality and plot it on the topo map.
Farmers use these updated soil maps today for fertility, drainage and cropping recommendations. It all begins with quality soil. Farmers live with high risk due to unpredictable weather, markets and economics.
“Many Americans go to Las Vegas to gamble; farmers just go to work,” my farmer uncle would tell me. Farmers must trust timely rains to sprout their crops, sunshine to grow the crops, dry spells to harvest the hay and healthy cows to produce the milk.
Seed genetic technology has provided for more production per acre through drought-resistant seed varieties, disease and pest-resistant plants and weed control systems. Farmers rely on these technologies to help reduce weather risk.
Markets and economics
After milk is harvested from the cow, dairy farms rely upon unpredictable market forces to provide an equitable price for their milk.
“Dairy farming is the only production system that buys its inputs at retail price and sells its product at wholesale price,” a sage farmer informed me. Selected farms today integrate milk processing into their production with specialty marketing of dairy products to help reduce market price risk. Larger farms have developed relationships with key processors via a cooperative business structure or JV model of cost-plus manufacturing to reduce market price risk. Thus, another way that farmers are dependent upon processors to assist in their farming operation.
Additional tools that farmers depend upon are government subsidies, loans and insurance to cover catastrophic and challenging weather and market conditions. These government programs benefit consumers by providing consistent and low-cost food.
The land grant university system was developed by the Morrill Act of 1862 as a way to assist farmers with improving agriculture production through research, teaching and extension. The federal government, with state support, would provide research funding to develop proven farming practices.
Colleges taught agriculture production to farmers along with university extension training for farmers to implement innovative farming practices.
Research, teaching and extension are active in many regions. Farming practices today are refined on the farm with modern farm technology using real-time cropping, weather and livestock data monitoring. Farmers today can operate their own research collection and refine their own farming systems to become more efficient and profitable.
The next generation of agriculture technology, using on-farm satellite data with artificial intelligence analysis, will advance dairy and food production innovation for a more sustainable, safe and reliable food supply.
Innovation
I grew up around my uncle’s livestock and crop farm in the 1960s and grew to love farming. Although my uncle was not a high-technology farmer, he did employ selective genetics on his cattle and used new strains of corn seed. He told me that if you want to be a farmer, you need to adjust and adapt to people and the weather. Avoid the mindset of “we’ve never done it that way.”
I learned from my uncle that farming requires trust and dependence and risk when using new things. The longest continuously operating family dairy farm in America has been in existence for over 350 years with more than 10 generations of family operation. How have these farms had this type of tenure?
It’s thanks to technology and adaptation to new methods of farming. From the soil to the seeds to the dairy genetics and innovation in equipment and nutrition technology, these have all helped and assisted farmers to be more efficient and profitable.
Modern dairy farms of today are dependent upon technology and innovation to continue to allow their farms to become more efficient, more resilient and more profitable. Farmers embrace and depend upon seed, feed and equipment technology that has given them more opportunity to manage and control uncontrollable risk factors associated with weather, soils, environment and land.
Summary
If you enjoyed ice cream or cheese on the burger at your recent Fourth of July picnic, thank a dairy farmer. While we celebrate independence, we must also recognize our deep dependence on farmers, on nature and, ultimately, on God.
In contrast to Frank Sinatra’s “I did it my way,” perhaps a better anthem is one of trust, humility and gratitude. Thanks to all the innovative and interdependent dairy farmers for your dedication to providing quality, nutritious dairy products that we as Americans depend every meal.
