Sky-High Feed Prices Are Pushing Dairy Farmers Over The Edge
Megadairies are taking over as small operators struggle to survive
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Eric Vanstrom stuck by his dairy cows through a recession, a trade war and a global pandemic that forced him to dump milk into manure pits. This year, though, he’s finally had enough. The thing that’s putting him over the edge: exorbitant grain prices.
One weekend in early June, the Kennedy, New York, farmer and his wife loaded 46 milking cows into livestock trailers and sent them off to an auction house. Some went to other dairies. Others ended up at slaughterhouses, to be turned into ground beef. They were so expensive to feed and so unprofitable that he wasn’t even sad to see them go.