Milk Maid
On Friday, one of our readers came in to renew her paper. She and I visited about a number of things for quite a while, and I thoroughly enjoyed her visit.
We began to talk about Rusty’s Cafe and how much we enjoy the food and how sad we are that it will be closing. She said, “Now a days, young people don’t want the responsibility or work of a business.”
Now, that statement really had the wheels in my head spinning.
As a millennial, our generation gets a bad reputation for many things like killing American cheese (the sliced processed stuff), paper napkins, face-to-face conversation and the list goes on and on.
Every group of people has their good and rotten apples, but I’d have to disagree that my generation doesn’t want the responsibility.
It’s that we can’t afford it. Most of us have student loan baggage and would like to be home owners before taking on something risky like a business.
For me personally, the responsibility of a business isn’t what is scary. I farm with my family everyday. If I don’t get up and moving, who will take care of my animals and all that goes into their care?
What is scary though, is that with many businesses, making money is hard to do. Especially in agriculture. This is one of the toughest years that even the most seasoned farmers can remember.
From the crazy spring snow blizzards, to the summer flooding, to the lack of sunshine and warm temperatures and everything in between.
Yields and crop qualities have been dramatically impacted. We don’t have enough straw for the year, that’s a fact and it’s something that our family will have to address.
Right now, I’m just hoping to get my animals through the winter. Money matters, right? Well, commodity prices have been in the tank and the tariffs and trade wars going on globally only add to a gloomy agricultural outlook.
It was announced that the United States and China are working on trade negotiations, that would be a welcome relief to many farmers.
On Monday, U.S. Representative Collin Peterson, who is a key member of the House Ag Committee, told reporters at the Moorhead airport the final farm bill awaits a budget analysis, and Congress is expected to vote on it as its session comes to a close in the coming weeks.
One of the highlights that caught my attention was about small dairy farms. Small dairy farmers come out ahead in the bill, Peterson said.
“If you have less than five million pounds of milk, and that’s about 240 cows, under what we’ve put in the bill, you will not be able to lose money,” he said.
“Hopefully we’ll give the safety net dairy farmers need to stay in business.” Our farm is under that umbrella, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
One of the reasons that millennials aren’t “taking on the responsibility” of businesses and farms is simply because they are going under at a rapid pace. Just take a look at any auction or realty site, and you’ll see the number of farm auctions is a staggering number.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, as of Nov. 1, the Wisconsin dairy state had lost 660 cow herds from a year earlier, and the number of herds was down nearly 49 percent from 15 years ago.
I haven’t been able to track down an exact number of Minnesota dairy farms that have called it quits this year, but every week, if not every few days, I see another farm throw in the towel. While I don’t know what the solutions are to the ever growing problems surrounding today’s ag economy, I do know that there is a good number of millennials that want to put the work and effort into keep their family’s legacy alive.
I do know for certain is that I, along with many others, are ready to kick 2018 to the curb and I’m hoping for a much better 2019.
As Rep. Peterson said on Monday, “Frankly, it’s a damn miracle we got it done.”
That’s how I will personally feel once the calendar flips in a few weeks.