Self employed again

[Mark K]

Well we shipped our final tank of milk today. Decided it was time to hang this hat up and move on. Our family has been shipping milk for 37 years and things were just getting to tough to keep going. Price of milk is in the hole and the price of operating just keeps on the increase. I moved my skidder this past week onto a decent size job along with a couple more in the works. Hopefully everything pans out, gonna feel weird not to see the girls in the morning  :(.

[red oaks lumber]

and logging is the pot of gold?

[jjmk98k]

Wish you the best of luck....

[Mark K]

No it's not the pot of gold but it is work and it has been supporting the farm for a few years now. We made a decent amount of milk but a $2300 grain bill every 2 weeks and our seed-fertilizer bill of over$15k a year sets you back a ways. We tryed to keep it going but with our savings slowly draining out we decided it was time. Cutting logs and running the mill has put food on the table.

[Dave Shepard]

Sorry to hear you had to give it up Mark. I'm on a small family farm here and I know just what you are talking about.

and logging is the pot of gold?

A few years ago my family bought a few heifers from a guy who was giving it up. He went off to cut pulp wood because there was more money in that than farming.

[stonebroke]

Don't know how you survived the past few years in upstate NY milking cows.

Stonebroke

[Faron]

We saw a lot of empty dairy barns on our trip from Indiana to New Jersey.  Sad to see.  The last dairy in our county sold their cows last month.

[JohnG28]

Sorry to hear that Mark, rough to have to give up something after so long.  Sure seems to have been the tune to a lot of upstate dairy businesses, sad to see things keep going that way around here.  Hope you keep it going with everything else keeps going well for you.

[Magicman]

Several have turned the girls out here also.  I wish you the best of luck for the future.   

[Bro. Noble]

We won't be too far behind you :(  Putting in 60 hour weeks for free the past three years hasn't been real fun.  I'm having a hard time imagining what life would be like without going to the milkbarn twice a day.  I suppose I could adjust :D :D  We will probably start spending more time in the timber and at the mill this fall.  At least we can take off if we want to.  Not so with the stoopid cows.

[Norm]

Sorry to hear that Mark. I know all the diary guys in our area are having a tough time with the pricing now. Seems strange as a few years ago they were finally making some money for the hard work. Then came the latest financial crisis and prices plunged for milk. At the height we had a bunch of families move in from the Netherlands. They opened up big dairy operations but many have gone bankrupt.

Red oaks the smart ash remark was classless.

[jeffreythree]

They had a big news article here about the last dairy in Collin county(near Dallas).  They were able to stick it out selling raw milk to the public for $8.00 a gallon  .  Legal to do it here, but the local inspectors frowned on it a bit and were recommending the public not drink raw milk.  It was that or sell out to a developer.

[red oaks lumber]

norm,
  around here logging is in the tank, farming is betterso that is what i based my comment on. i didn't know you were the hall monitor.

[Norm]

Nah I'm just tired of your bs.

[Warbird]

Sorry to hear this, Mark.  Welcome to the progress of the future.  :( 

[Patty]

Mark,

Good luck in your new venture. I wish you all the success in the world.  I can't tell you how many times we have "started over". But you know, I think each time you pick yourself up, brush off the dirt, and move on.....that you get stronger each time.  ;)

[SwampDonkey]

It's the same all over I guess with dairy. I don't know if there is a single dairy between Houlton and Caribou, Maine. I've never seen any that I can remember. There is a Houlton Dairy, but where are the cows? Maybe it's become like Baxters, Perfection, and Northumberland Dairies in New Brunswick, now in Quebec.

Norm we also have a few Dutch farmers that pass through here to. If the locals can't make it, there's no hope, even though they have big ideas and government (new Entrant program) money. Dad's farm is being sold again now for the 3rd time in 9 years. There is no development boon here, never was or will be. A farm pretty much stays farm, besides being under FLIP that says the tax man wants his share if it is ever used for anything different.

[Mark K]

Thanks for all your support guys. Got up this morning at usual time and instead of heading to the barn I jumped in the truck and headed the half hour drive to the woods. Just got home because the wind picked up real high but still managed to pull close to a tri-axle load. Not bad I think I can get use to this, heading for our camp up north tonight. It'll be nice to spend time with the kids. I wish our government would wake up and realize what farmers are going thru. 4 years ago we were getting 21.50 per hundred for our milk, now were getting 14.35. There's something wrong with this picture. Thanks again for all your support.

[Warbird]

I wish our government would wake up and realize what farmers are going thru.

The new administration promised "change".  This was the kind of change I was afraid of.  :-\

[gunman63]

Im sure that im going  pith some people off, but heres what i beleive, there shouldnt be any goverment in farming at all, u moan that the goverment  is not helping u, well guess what, it shouldnt help the farmer, shouldnt help the rancher, shouldnt help the downtown business man, shouldnt help the logger or sawmill owner, If u cant make it, stay the heck out of the barn,  out of the woods, or out of business,whining about  milk not being good money, would be like me selling firewood at below cost, and whining about uncle sam,  not helping me, thats not how it should be, u cant make it, quit do something else, if u got in over your head, anit my fault, nor the  goverment.
   "change" has nothign to do with the  milk price, heck thats the milk price game for years not the last few that u guys want to blame the president with.

[Mark K]

We weren't in over are head, we owned the farm and paid for everything in cash. Had no equipment loans or credit for seed and feed. We averaged 72# per cow without pushing hard. We just decided it was time. You can decide how much you want for your firewood, we cannot control our milk prices. Government was suppose to step in and make up the difference from the break even point because the bottlers were claiming fuel prices and costs of producing were to high.

[Dave Shepard]

The only help we want from the gov is to not! help. They control the prices, hence the issue. ;)

[logwalker]

Well can someone explain how the milk business works. It seems like I have heard about the fluctuation in milk prices since I was a kid. Never did understand it.

Joe

[SwampDonkey]

Here in Canada, policy, production and import/export is pretty much controlled by the feds (Canadian Dairy Commission), dividing production up between provinces and the provinces divide that share among producers on a quota system (milk marketing boards - eg. Dairy Farmers of New Brunswick). The provincial marketing boards set the prices.

[Gary_C]

Well can someone explain how the milk business works.
Joe

NO! It's beyond human comprehension. I know more than a little bit about it but still do not understand much about what goes on in the inner workings of the milk markets.

In general the federal milk order system was created in the 1920's to protect the milk producers from ruthless processors who were taking unfair advantage of producers of a perishable food product. Fast forward to today and the federal order system has been turned on it's head thru umpteen revisions and now protects the milk processors profit margins so that they can always buy all the milk that is produced. In reality, it does nothing to control the milk prices other than to put a floor under milk prices at such a low level that no producer today can survive at that level. Last I knew it was below $10.00 per cwt or about 86 cents per gallon and the price was below $10.00 just about a year ago. Oh and another thing, the price paid to the producer depends on where in the country you live. It used to depend on how far from Eau Claire, WI you lived with the higher prices paid the further away you were.

And if a milk producer adds even the slightest bit of water to his milk they can and will throw the producer in jail yet the processor will immediately add water when they pick up the milk and siphon off the fat, protein, and solids non fat leaving a product that looks like and tastes like dishwater. And then the feds take money from the producers to promote the sales of that dishwater and wonder why people do not drink milk like they used to.

gunman63, you forgot one other thing. People should stick to giving advice when they know what they are talking about.

The government's role should be in protecting against unfair competition including that from other countries that try to protect their own industries. In other words insure a level playing field. Problem is our congress can't seem to understand that one fact.

And now that Donk has explained the Canadian system, I will say they are a good example of what is not free and fair trade. Canadian producers are protected with very valuable quota's and high prices to the producers along with trade barriers to protect their system.