MINNEAPOLIS — Things are tough in farm country, especially for milk producers in Minnesota.
The number of active dairy farms in the state recently dropped below 2,000, which is less than half the total from just ten years earlier. Producers, buffeted by a combination of market forces and dry weather, have faced tough decisions about whether to keep milking or sell off their herds.
Gov. Tim Walz wanted to highlight those issues Thursday when he visited Karl Heldberg's farm in Le Sueur County.
"It’s a little hard for people to make the connection with food prices being up, although commodity prices to our producers are at a pretty tragic low right now," Walz told reporters. "We saw $24, $23 a hundredweight for milk, but now that’s about $14 or $14.50."
A hundredweight of milk is essentially 11.6 gallons. In other words, dairy farmers currently are being paid $14 for 11.6 gallons of raw milk by dairy processors. And that's only if they can find a creamery that has the capacity to buy their milk.
Heldberg said many creameries already have more milk than they can handle, so they can't take on more. He said he feels fortunate that Bongards Creameries is buying his milk.
"Luckily, I’m in a good place right now. But I’m one of the fortunate ones," Heldberg explained. "It’s hard to switch creameries or look for better prices. You can’t do much about it. They're running at full capacity. If there’s overflow it’s a challenge. When things are full it’s full."
His milking herd, at 70 cows, is relatively small by today's standards. But Heldberg told the governor that increasing his herd would require him to bring in more hired help, which would probably wipe out any additional income the additional cows would generate.
As it stands, Heldberg can get by with one hired hand and his three children.
"If people really want to help, they should drink more milk and eat more cheese!"
Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen, who joined Walz at the Heldberg Farm, said the Minnesota Department of Agriculture is looking for more ways to help milk producers survive this rough patch.
The 2023 Agriculture and Broadband bill includes a host of initiatives designed to maintain family farms, according to Petersen. That includes spending more money this year to buy milk for food banks, which will help increase demand for dairy products.
The MDA is also looking to expand export markets.
"Expanding our markets whether it’s Asia, looking at European, South American countries. The Department of Agriculture is really trying to work on those markets," Petersen told reporters.
"We’re just doing everything we can with a lot of milk on the market right now and low prices for farmers."
Petersen noted that state lawmakers agreed to increase funding for the Farmer Assistance Program, which can provide grants, loans and other help.
The legislature also gave the department more money to operate the Dairy Development and Profitability Program.
In early June the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, or MPCA, cut off the Hastings Creamery from the local sewer system because of violations of wastewater standards.
Petersen's agency stepped in to help come up with a plan to ship the creamery's wastewater to a different treatment plant that could process it. Otherwise, the creamery would've had to shut down and stop buying from 45 farmers in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The governor and his commissioner reminded reporters that much of what happens in farm country is affected by federal policy, which is why they're hoping Congress can agree on a new farm bill this year.
"Federal farm bills are a critical piece of what makes the economy in Minnesota and across the country work," Walz remarked.
"That farm bill’s going to expire here in a few moths. We encourage them to finish that on time, to listen to the producers who are out here on what worked, what didn’t work last time."
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