Production scarce in sourcing SWMO dairy industry

It’s a chilly gray Saturday afternoon and only a few dozen customers browse the winter selection at the Greater Springfield Farmer’s Market – except at Bruce and Nancy Salisbury’s booth. There is a line formed for Loreane Dairy’s raw milk and cheese.

“People like fresh,” said Bruce Salisbury, who with his wife Debbie, started the 40-cow operation after retiring in 2004.

“Being a dairy farmer is tough,” Salisbury said of his early morning schedule. “I don’t do it for the money, because there really isn’t any. I just like the lifestyle.”

Producing 200 to 300 pounds of cheese a week, including cheddar curds and ricotta, and operating as the state’s only licensed seller of raw milk, Salisbury estimated Loreane Dairy still loses about $5,000 a month.

“We have about $15,000 in expenses and probably bring in about $10,000 a month,” he said. “However, we sold some cows this year, so I think we’re going to come close to a profit.”

Loreane Dairy is one of about 219 dairy farms operating in southwest Missouri. Missouri Dairy Association Executive Director Dave Drennan said the Ozarks region is known for its dairy prominence.

“The dairy industry was really rejuvenated after World War II when all the soldiers came home and the Ozarks offered plenty of the two main components for dairy farming: land and grass,” he said. “To this day, the dairy industry is still concentrated in Springfield. It’s the unofficial hub of the Missouri dairy industry.”

Drennan said at one time, Missouri and the Ozarks, in particular, produced so much dairy it was referred to as Little Madison, in homage to Madison, Wis., the unofficial dairy capital of the United States.

On the decline
As of December 2011, the state of Missouri reported 1,025 federal milk marketing regulated dairy operations, marketing more than 107 million pounds of milk, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Milk Market Administration.

With more than a fifth of all federal order dairy farms in the state – 21.3 percent – southwest Missouri dairy farms produced more than 21 million total pounds of milk which were marketed in 2011. Farms in the southwest counties of Barry, Newton, Christian, Dade, Greene, Jasper, Lawrence, McDonald, Newton and Stone averaged 97,129 pounds of milk marketed per farm.

Drennan said in 1995 Missouri was the 14th largest state in milk production, but have dropped 10 spots to 24th on the list in 2011.

“The No. 1 reason is because farmers have switched to an easier production, like beef cattle,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of dairies across the county are family owned and labor is a key issue for diary farmers. Kids today want off the farm, and to boot, families are getting smaller.”

Drennan said the decline of Missouri farms has created a roller coaster effect for remaining Missouri farmers, adding recent environmental conditions, such as this summer’s drought, likely shuttered nearly 100 Missouri farms in 2012.

“The figures don’t lie,” Drennan said. “In 1975, there were 20,000 farms in the state and 330,000 cows. Today, we have less than 2,000 farms and about 95,000 cows, and we only produce about half of the milk consumers in the state need.”

Drennan also cited the National Animal Agriculture Economic Analysis by the United Soybean Board, which says national milk production grew 18 percent between 2001 and 2011, but production in Missouri fell by more than 28 percent in that time. Decreased milk production because of increased production costs is a problem the Missouri Dairy Association is looking to Washington for help on as it makes a final push to get a new five-year Farm Bill, including the Dairy Security Act, passed by Congress before Dec. 31, according to a release.

“We can’t wait,” Missouri Dairy Association President Larry Purdom said of the growing problem, in the release. “Just this week, the USDA estimated the cost of milk produced in October to be $20.56 per hundredweight, surpassing $20 for the first time ever.

“These poor economics have caused heavy liquidation of dairy herds and many dairies closing their doors across the country. When the cows are gone, they are gone and not coming back to the farm. We need a new Farm Bill now, with the Dairy Security Act, to get some immediate relief assistance for the drought, and to set the course for future farm policy for the next five years.”

Pocket of production
The University of Missouri Extension estimates the southwest region has about 95,000 milk cows which produce more than 1.3 billion pounds each year, supplying hometown startups such as Hiland Dairy, which used more than 1 million fluid gallons of milk during the Thanksgiving holiday, sourcing as much as they could locally.

“Our company is larger than most people think,” said Greg Stephenson, director of marketing and advertising for the dairy company.

“We are presently in the Dakotas, Texas, Colorado and all points in between like Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Nebraska. So the company is growing.”

According to HilandDairy.com, the company began in 1938 when Bert Putman and Walter Carter used a gas-powered electric generator to milk a 50-cow herd and sold their product door-to-door to homes in the area.

“Most people don’t know that Bert Putman originally milked cows in what is now Fellows Lake,” Stephenson said. “That was his farm. It has a lot of acreage and it was an ideal place to put a dam at the end of the valley and be a great water supply for the city of Springfield.”

One of about 40 such dairies in the Springfield area in the late 1930s, in 1948 Hiland moved to a single, two-story building on old Route 66, a location the Hiland plant still occupies today at 1133 E. Kearney St.

With 248 local employees and about 2,500 companywide, Stephenson said Hiland is jointly owned by two dairy farmer co-operatives: Dairy Farmer’s of America and Prairie Farms Dairy. The Springfield plant is divided into two production centers – ice cream and fluid products – and produces milk, ice cream, orange juice, tea and other drinks, netting $550 million in 2011 revenue, according to Springfield Business Journal archives.

To boot, Springfield will host the newly-expanded multistate regional Heart of America Dairy Expo for the next two years, slated next year for Jan. 25–26 at the Ramada Oasis Hotel and Convention Center.

“We are really excited to offer dairy farmers in the Midwest an alternative for educational programming closer to home and directed to our needs,” said Purdom, in a news release. “We picked Springfield, for the next two years, because it is a natural trade hub and home to many dairy businesses such as Kraft Foods Inc., Paul Mueller Co., F&S Food Equipment Co., Dairy Farmers of America and Hiland Dairy Foods Co.”