Dairy Farming

I just started following another dairy farmers blog.  Reading it made me really stop and think about my own blessings.  There are a lot of people out there suffering with these milk prices. 

We barely made it in 2009, but we had a head start. First we are running a family farm that has been around for over a century, lots of stuff is paid for.  Then we sold lots of old scrap steel at great prices, that helped kick start the year for us, plus clean up the place.  In 2009 milking cows lost us money, but we had other means to keep our farm going. 

This past year milk prices were better, but not great.  We were able to make do, then sell crops at great prices.   Again, we are blessed to have other commodities to sell.  We always sell soybeans and wheat, but we even had a good enough harvest to sell some extra corn.

Our story is a good one, but there are lots of young farms out there that don't have tons of old steel laying around from decades of farming.  Or they just grow enough crops to feed their cows, no great crop price will help you there. Even worse, there are farmers who have to buy feed for their cows. These great prices for corn can work the other way for many farms.  They might not be able to buy the feed they need to keep their cows fed.

I hope when you say your dinner prayers, you will include those farmers who are struggling to afford to work all day every day to feed your family.