The United States dairy industry has undergone a significant transformation that has been pushed by government policies aimed at boosting milk production and expanding export markets, it said.
However, this approach has had detrimental effects on family-scale farms and the environment, while benefiting agribusinesses and corporate lobbyists, the report published online said.
In the past 20 years, U.S. dairy exports rose eightfold – more than almost any other commodity – which has coincided with rapid consolidation across the industry.
The consolidation in the U.S. dairy industry has occurred at a faster pace than in every other agricultural sector apart from hog and egg production.
This consolidation is happening at both the farm level – fewer farms, more mega-dairies — and at the processing level — fewer but larger corporations and cooperatives that purchase, process, and market dairy products.
The number of U.S. dairy farms was cut in half between 1997 and 2017, while the average number of cows per farm increased by 139 per cent.
More than 70 per cent of the milk is produced on farms with at least 500 cows, with the largest dairies managing herds of more than 25,000.
In the past 20 years, spiraling debt and bankruptcies have been linked to farmer suicides and the decline in rural populations, the report said.
“We cannot export or consume our way out of this problem; we need policies to better manage supplies to reflect actual demand so that dairy farming can go back to being a viable livelihood,” said Sarah Lloyd, a dairy farmer in Wisconsin who helps run the family’s midsize farm with 450 cows.
Food and Water Waste organization has estimated that between 2005 and 2018 dairy farmers paid around $4 billion into the mandatory Dairy Checkoff program which funds campaigns pushing milk, butter, and creamers to consumers and fast-food firms that mostly benefit mega-dairies.
At the state level, at least $75 million in New York taxpayer dollars has flowed to a handful of corporate and cooperative entities in the last 20 years, with the promise of a few thousand jobs – some of which were quickly lost when dairy plants closed FWW said.