Dairy farmers like Donald Hosting face an incredible bind: “1973 prices and 2009 costs.” An article in today’s New York Times says it’s going to get worse before it gets better—unless consumers and landowners step in. More on that in a minute.

No Time for a Vacation or Even a Cat Nap

Because cows never take a day off, dairy farmers work 365 days a year. Here is the schedule for Eddy Bennett, a New York dairy farmer profiled in Keith Stewart’s brilliant book, “It’s a Long Road to a Tomato”:

• 7:30-8:30am Get up and have breakfast
• 8:30-10:30am Feed heifers in barn
• 10:30-1:00pm: Milk cows then turn them out to pasture. Clean barn.
• 1:00-1:30pm: Eat lunch
• 1:30-6:00pm do field work (plant, mow or bale hay, harvest corn, fix fence, spread manure)
• 6:00p-8:00pm Bring cows back to barn and feed them
• 8:00pm-midnight: eat and sleep
• Midnight to 4:00am: Milk cows and feed calves. Clean barn.
• 4:00-7:30am: Sleep

Dairy Farmers Earn 93 cents Per Gallon

When Bennett’s piece was written in 2002 the price per 100-weight for milk was $12.50. One hundred pounds of milk is 11.6 gallons. Now the price is $10.85. Every time the milk truck backs up to the farm, a dairy farmer loses money, even with farm support programs. In 2002, Bennett made $3,500 net profit on $169,000 in gross income. Keeping expenses from 2002 constant for a minute and simply reducing his price per 100-weight by 13% means that Bennett will lose $20,460 this year.

Three Solutions to a Desperate Problem

Farm policy is often painted as complex and inbred. But you can make a difference.

Would you be willing to spend an extra nickel for a quart of milk if you knew it went straight to the farmer? I think most people would. That’s what Stewart recommends in his book. For Eddy Bennett that means his net profit would have been $31,000 in 2002. Not a king’s ransom, but a living.

The second option is buy products directly from dairy farmers. Raw milk if they sell it, cheese, eggs, pork. Whatever farmers sell, buy it direct and the money goes to them rather than to a processor or distributor. Small and mid-size farmers need government support to begin to produce added value products like the amazing cheese you find at Cricket Creek Farm. Their cheese sells retail for more than $25 per pound. Quite a difference from the $10.85 per 100-weight that Cricket Creek earns for it.

But so many farmers are on the 24/7 dairy treadmill that adding the time and expense associated with a cheese-making operation is almost out of the realm of possibility without low-cost government loans, training and apprentices. Maybe we need a GI Bill for farmers.

Finally, if you are a landowner with pasture adjacent to dairy farms, consider putting your land back into production. Let your neighbor’s cows graze on the land and in return receive a tax deduction from the government. That’s working well for Whippoorwill Farm. Allen and Robin Cockerline own just two acres but have access to over 300 acres to graze their beef cattle.

If we don’t take these simple steps, the only places producing milk in this country will be megafarms in the Midwest and California. If you’ve seen “Food, Inc.” you know how much we need diversity in our food system.

Hear the recent story on News Hour here.