The Dairy Farming Of American Dairy Farms

From the beginning, American dairy farming been ever changing, from the beginnings where cows were milked by hand and the milk was transported by buckets to now where machines and mechanization has taken over. Since 1997 the total number of farms in America has decreased, including the traditional family farm. In “Restructuring America’s Dairy Farms” by John A. Cross he states Traditional dairy farms have between 20-49 cows, dropped significantly by 33.7 percent although this number has dropped small family farms still have 28.9 percent of the countries dairy cows. On the other hand, large scale operations which have 500 or more dairy cows have 41 percent of the country’s dairy cows. ] With Americas thirst for milk ever increasing with the growing population, farms are having to continue to evolve and expand or sell out.

According to the USDA between the years 2000 and 2006 large scale farms increased by 104 percent. These large scale farms are more specialized than ever before. On a traditional dairy farm the cows spend most of their time in their assigned stanchion. This is where the farmer handles the cows and all the production happens. The famer is also the one who deals with all the daily activities and chores around the farm while also dealing with managerial duties. Along with this the farmer has to find time to cut and process the feed for his cows. A large scale or industrial farms are completely different.

A large scale farm is run like a business or a factory majority of the effort is put to there is a separation in the workers and the management of the farm. There are managers that oversee the operations of the farm and delegates the chores to the workers. The workers unlike a traditional farm where they are fam...

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...h are not up to specifications set by the factories and cheese producers. In most small traditional farms the milk is stored in a system that keeps the milk fresh. The Amish do not have this type of system on their family farms. The Amish have now adapted, they have banded together and have their own factories as the non-Amish factories will not take their milk as it is not up to specifications.

This is where the future of farming is headed as the small dairy farm begins to go away and the industrial or large scale farm begins to take over as it adapts better than the small farmers. As the demand for milk rises it will be harder and harder for the small traditional farms to compete with old inefficient outdated farming practices. This is where the adaptation begins to come in farmers are either going to have to expand and adapt or sell out to the Large scale farmers