Small dairy farmers scrambling for new customers after Walmart decides to produce its own milk - Entrepreneur Generations

A cow looks into the milking room at a Ky. dairy
farm. (Courier Journal photo by Pat McDonogh)

More than 100 small dairy farmers in Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and three other states are desperately seeking new buyers, after Dean Foods informed them in late February that it would terminate their milk procurement contracts. "The reason for the cut: Walmart no longer will buy Dean’s milk for its Great Value house brand, cutting the production needed at Dean’s Louisville plant, which the company announced will be shut down soon," Grace Schneider reports for the Courier Journal in Louisville, Ky. "Walmart has started its own production facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana." Dean also cited an increase in milk production and a decrease in milk consumption as reasons for the termination in its letter to the affected dairy farmers.

This week Dean extended the deadline until the end of June, but farmers are still searching for new customers or cooperatives to pick up their contracts, with little luck so far. Losing these dairy farms could hurt the surrounding communities. Maury Cox, executive director of the Kentucky Dairy Development Council, noted that each cow generates $14,000 a year in economic impact from vet bills, feed, fuel and equipment, Schneider reports.

In a column last month for the Henry County Local, Kentucky author and farmer Wendell Berry suggested farmers should form their own cooperative as tobacco farmers did decades ago. "The story of Dean Foods’ cancelled contracts is a representative piece of the story of rural America since the 1950s, when [President] Eisenhower’s secretary of agriculture told farmers to 'get big or get out,'" Berry wrote. "And so the story of rural America has been the story of the dispossession of millions of farm families, the disintegration of rural communities, and the destruction of small businesses and small towns."

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2KUN1eG Small dairy farmers scrambling for new customers after Walmart decides to produce its own milk - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

Tweet