Gone But Not Forgotten… Small Family Dairy Farms Disappeared Without a Trace

Wisconsin — otherwise known as America's Dairyland — has lost two-thirds of its dairy farms since 1969, according to statistics from the United States Census of Agriculture. Thirty-five years ago, Wisconsin had 60,000 dairy farms. Today, only about 20,000 dairy farms remain.

Nationwide statistics from the United States Census of Agriculture show the same trend. In 1969, more than a half a million dairy farms operated in the United States. Today, only about 80,000 dairy farms remain.

"When I was a kid, you could drive up and down the country roads and see farm after farm that milked 20 or 30 cows. Most those small farms are gone now," said LeAnn R. Ralph, a journalist and author who grew up on a small family dairy farm in west central Wisconsin.

"The price that farmers receive for their milk has essentially stayed the same for the past twenty-five years, although during that same time period, the cost of property taxes, machinery, and just about anything else you can think of has doubled, tripled or quadrupled," Ralph said.

According to the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service, in 1979, farmers earned just over $12 per hundredweight for their milk. Eleven years later in 1988, farmers were still earning just over $12 per hundredweight for their milk.

Twelve years after that in 2000, farmers earned $12.32 per hundredweight for their milk, according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

"It's no wonder that so many small family dairy farms have gone out of business. Over the years, milk prices have occasionally gone up to $15 or $16 or $17 per hundredweight, but the price hasn't stayed up long enough to help small farmers—especially not when their expenses are increasing faster than their income," Ralph said.

"If farmers received the same price for their milk that consumers pay at the grocery store, farmers would be earning $35 or $40 a hundredweight for their milk," she noted.

"During the course of my work as a newspaper reporter, I have talked to a number of third or fourth generation dairy farmers who were ready to retire," Ralph said. "A deep sadness comes into their eyes when they talk about retiring because they know that it means the end of their dairy farms. It's not that their children don't want to farm. It's that their children cannot afford to farm," she said.

Now that most of the small family dairy farms have disappeared from Wisconsin and from other parts of the country, Ralph's new book, Christmas In Dairyland (True Stories From a Wisconsin Farm), helps preserve a piece of rural history.

The 120-acre farm where Ralph spent her childhood was homesteaded by her Norwegian great-grandfather in the late 1800s. Her book, Christmas In Dairyland (True Stories From a Wisconsin Farm) (August 2003; ISBN 1-59113-366-1; trade paperback; 153 pages; $13.95), features 20 stories set on her family's farm during the Christmas season.

Story titles from Christmas In Dairyland include "The Lefse Connection," "Milkweed Pods and Poinsettias," "Wintergreen," "White Christmas," "The Most Perfect Toboggan," "A Candle for Christmas," "Jeg Er Sa Glad Hver Julekveld" ("I Am So Glad Each Christmas Eve") and "A New Year Unlike Any Other." The book also contains recipes for lefse (a flat Norwegian potato pastry), fattigman (a Norwegian cookie, pronounced 'futty-mun'), julekake, and Christmas cookies, as well as instructions for making candles out of old crayons, as featured in the story "A Candle for Christmas."

"Several years ago a story of mine about my dad making ice cream was published in an e-mail newsletter. The title of the story was 'Dad's Favorite Recipe,' and for several weeks after that I received e-mails from people asking for the recipe. That's why I decided to include recipes for some of the foods mentioned in my stories," Ralph explained.

Ralph earned an undergraduate degree in English with a writing emphasis from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and also earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from UW-Whitewater. She taught English at a boys' boarding school for several years and worked as a newspaper reporter for more than eight years. She is a freelance writer for two weekly newspapers in west central Wisconsin and is the editor of the Wisconsin Regional Writer, the quarterly publication of the Wisconsin Regional Writers' Assoc.

For more information about Christmas In Dairyland, visit www.ruralroute2.com. The book also can be ordered through www.booklocker.com or through any brick-and-mortar bookstore.

Contact Information:
LeAnn R. Ralph
http://ruralroute2.com
mailto:bigpines@ruralroute2.com
(715) 962-3368