Last week was my brother's birthday. We won't discuss age, but for a couple of months, he's only 2 years younger than me. There's not much he'd rather do than go to an auction. Left up to him, he'd be there for every single bid. I don't have quite that amount of patience, but the auction scene is nostalgic for me. I remember as a boy, tagging along with my dad and grandpa as we would attend auctions. They were always looking for a deal on some piece of equipment to keep the farm going. It was usually a deal that they would then have to add some creativity and elbow grease to. As a boy, I loved seeing all the equipment and getting to climb all over it, all while the auctioneer's chant rang in the background. They sold quite a few tractors with a little blonde towheaded boy sitting in the operator's seat. The auctioneer would always say, "This one comes with a driver." We traveled to auctions in several bordering states, and many in Georgia. We attended two or three each year. It was such a big deal for me that I would beg (sometimes successfully) to stay out of school if the auction was on a weekday.
What I didn't realize at the time is that I was watching from a front-row seat the demise of the dairy industry in the southeast. The auctions we attended were mainly dairy dispersals. Some dairyman had finally made the decision that his life's work was no longer a viable career option. That was hard, but that was the best-case scenario. Sometimes the debt pressure had become so much that the bank had made that decision for him. It seemed sad, even to a young boy. I knew the connection a dairy farmer has to the cows and the work he does 365 days each year. It was often hard to watch. The farmer hosting the auction often had a lot to do on sale day. I'm sure they would have chosen not to attend if that was an option. I saw many of them with a glassy stare on sale day, seemingly disconnected from the reality of what was happening around them. Looking back on it is heartbreaking for me, as now I know even deeper how connected a farmer is to his operation. It wasn't even really their fault. The Industry failed them.
In a nutshell, this is what happened. There was a lot of consolidation of fluid milk processing companies (they call themselves co-ops, but I refuse to do so) in the 80's and early 90's. The southeast is what's called a milk deficit region, meaning that we consume more milk than we produce. We have plenty of demand for milk, but due to our high humidity, heat, and lack of locally-grown high-quality feed, milk is considerably more expensive to produce here. So during the consolidation era, some of these milk processors made the calculation that they could haul milk from large dairies in Texas, Oklahoma, etc. cheaper than they could produce it in the south. However, to bring that milk into the south, they needed to own the "market". They bought the regional milk processing "co-ops" that covered the southeast, always selling the consolidation as a good thing for the dairyman and for future milk prices. Now we can see clearly that they bought these "co-ops" not to provide a market for the local farmers. They made these purchases solely so that they could bring their cheaper milk in from the west and mid-west. Providing more opportunity for those distant farms meant they could grow their already large dairies into mega-dairies, now milking several thousand cows in one location. Economies of scale meant that the "co-op" could now get mega-dairy milk even cheaper. Meanwhile, a landscape across the south that was once populated with dairy farms, and hard-working dairy farmers, is no longer so populated. These farmers spent their revenue at the local hardware store, parts store, and grocery store. They provided summer jobs for teenagers baling hay. The work ethic that helped them build a successful farm and become pillars of the community now has no natural way of being transferred to the next generation. That loss is far greater than any benefit we may have gotten from the cents saved on a gallon of milk.
I know, this story is sad, infuriating, and heartbreaking. It's also 100% accurate. I can hear someone saying "but your farm survived". That's correct, but at one time we were on the razor's edge of becoming the site of the next auction. Every time you see an abandoned silo, know that at one time there was a farmer that loved that place, those cows, and that lifestyle as much as my family loves ours. We owe those farmers our respect. I hope they know that they didn't fail. The industry failed them in its relentless pursuit of cheap food.
As of a couple of weeks ago, we are now the only dairy farm left in our county, maybe even all the surrounding counties. For the reasons mentioned above, that's bittersweet. Our continued presence in the dairy business is due to a few factors. Of course persistence, stubbornness, and hard work are a part of it, but along the way, there has been a healthy dose of luck. Recently we have been fortunate enough to find you. Yes, you. Customers who value the procedures we use and the quality of the product. A group of people that were wise enough to see through the "cheap food" propaganda. Everything really does have a cost, and usually, you get what you pay for. Cheap food is cheap for a reason.
Getting back to the auction. Three generations enjoyed spending some time together at an auction last week, using Brad's birthday as an excuse. This time I am the middle generation, and a different set of children were checking out all this auction had to offer. My dad, still thinking creatively, is now the proud owner of a rusty, non-running 1948 Studebaker M-16 truck. Similar to one of the early trucks my grandpa hauled milk on. We are planning to build a flatbed for it so kids that visit the farm will have a cool place to have their pictures made. In some ways, visiting an old-fashioned dairy farm shouldn't be so memorable. Unfortunately, it is.
