The rapid-fire cadence of the auctioneer,
the buyers nodding their heads or raising their hands to put in a bid, the
sound of the hammer hitting the gavel when a final price is reached, the word
“Sold” serving as an exclamation mark to the end of the transaction, and one-by-one—as
this sequence repeats itself--a herd of dairy cattle is dispersed.
That was the scene on Friday, April 22, at
the Kingsley Farms, located at the corner of Nicholson and Mohrle Roads in
Conway Township, northwest of Fowlerville.
The brothers—Gordon and Steve—had decided
for a variety of reasons to get out of the business of milking cows two times a
day. So on this day the two of them, along with other members of the Kingsley
family, plus neighbors and friends, watched as over 200 Holstein cows went to
new homes.
Earlier that morning they had milked the
cows—just as they had done countless times before since they were boys. That
might have been the end, except that fourteen of the cows weren’t sold. They
remained on the farm for three more days.
Finally last Monday morning, the final
milking took place in the parlor and then Gordon and Steve helped the livestock
hauler load the cows into a trailer. These remaining cattle were then sold at
an auction barn later in the day.
An hour later the brothers reflected on
what, for them, is the end of a way of life.
It should be noted that neither is leaving
agriculture—Kingsley Farms is still in business. Gordon pointed out that he and Steve own
over 700 acres and rent 120 additional acres and, thus, will be busy this
spring tilling the ground and planting crops. And there’ll be cattle to take
care of each day.
“We
still have around 200 replacement heifers and calves,” he said. “We’ll do that
for a couple of years and see how it goes. We don’t have enough acreage to
support ourselves with cash crops.”
Even
so, raising heifers is less demanding and time consuming than milking cows
twice a day. And the actual milking is only part of the task. There’s the
additional work of keeping track of the cows’ respective production numbers,
cleaning up after them, feeding them, and keeping them healthy. The
veterinarian is a frequent visitor.
“I didn’t have a chance to think that much
about it prior to the auction,” said Gordon of this impending life without
milking. At 64, he is the older brother and 1970 graduate of Fowlerville High
School. “This weekend was my turn to milk and do the chores, so the reality set
in.”
Steve, age 54, and a 1980 Fowlerville High
graduate, agreed it was a bittersweet moment to do the final milking on Monday
and then load the remaining cows, but added in a quiet voice, “It was the right
thing for us to do.”
In an earlier comment Steve had noted that
the price for fluid milk in the last check had been $13.65 per hundredweight.
“That’s what it sold for in 1980 when I graduated,” he said.
The low price was a factor in their
decision, but they noted that prices have been low before. “Anyone who farms knows
that you have highs and lows,” said Gordon. “That’s true whether it’s milk,
corn, beef cattle, wheat, or some other commodity. “But during the last 10
years it’s been a roller coaster of highs and lows. And when the prices would
drop all of a sudden, it was like falling off a cliff. Then it took a long time
to crawl out of the hole.”
“And,”
added Steve, “you didn’t get too far out of the hole and the price dipped
again. In earlier years there were peaks and valleys, but the valleys weren’t
so severe.”
To put this in perspective, Gordon said that
an $18-to-$19 price per hundredweight was needed to break even. “At $20 or
above there was a profit for us,” he said. “For one month in November of 2014,
the price was $25. But the average over the last year has been around $15 to
$16.”
While the amount varied due to the time of
year, the Kingsleys said that they shipped on average about 13,000 pounds a
day.
“The
main reason for the current low price is that the market is flooded,” noted
Steve. “More milk is being produced that is wanted by the (domestic) customers
or that is needed for export.”
Part of that low demand is due to increased
competition from energy drinks as well as pop. Also, unlike those beverages,
milk is perishable. The beverage only lasts so long on the shelf before it’s
outdated, putting it at a competitive disadvantage.
Another factor creating the current glut of
milk, said Gordon, is about a year ago China, which had been a major customer
of American dairy products, cut back on its imports.
They noted that byproducts like cheese,
yogurt, butter, and ice cream help, but that overall the consumption of milk
has gone down over the years.
Still another problem is that many producers have
to generate a certain amount of money to pay the bills. So, despite the price
being low, many of them add additional cattle to increase their gross income,
further glutting the market.
The brothers said that taking that route was
an option. “But,” said Steve, “while our milking parlor is in good shape, we’d
have needed to update our existing barns and add another one. We’d also need to
produce more feed which means planting more crops and updating the equipment,
and we’d need steady help.”
“People don’t realize that it takes a lot of
equipment, a lot of labor, and sometimes a lot of upfront investment to operate
a dairy farm nowadays,” added Gordon. “We’ve usually milked around 200 cows.
That’s large compared to when we were growing up, but it’s a small herd by
today’s standards. For someone to start a dairy farm from scratch would be
nearly impossible. We were lucky that our parents had purchased this place and
much of the operation was in place by the time we took over.”
The roots of
the Kingsley Farms go back a long ways. However, the main farm where the milking took place was
purchased in 1951 by Gordon and Steve’s parents, Maurice and Wilma Kingsley.
Milking a few cattle had always been part of
most farm operations, but during the post-World War II years dairy farms grew
in size and scope. The Kingsley’s were part of that trend.
Both Gordon and Steve, along with their
sisters Maureen, Marilee, JoAnn, and Joyce grew up on the farm, did chores, and
participated in 4-H.
“Mom and Dad built this business,” noted
Gordon. “My grandparents had a farm just down the road. I went into partnership
with my father in 1976. I had gone to Michigan State University after
graduating from high school and then taken a two-year agricultural short
course.”
Steve
said that he had continued working on the farm after high school and became a
partner in 1993. “A year later (in 1994) we built the current milk parlor, which
was a major investment,” he pointed out. “At the time a lot of residential
growth was going on around us, and we weren’t sure with the price of land going
up if this was a good risk. We figured we needed ten years to pay if off, which
we did.”
The two of them pointed out that, although
the price of milk has been akin to a roller coaster in recent years, for most
of their tenure the modulations have been more gradual and included profitable
years.
With that history in mind, the option of
“toughing it out” by either expanding or even downsizing and await better times
was available.
What
convinced them to go ahead and sell the herd was, they explained, a combination
of their age, the fact that a younger generation was not waiting in the wings to
succeed them (nor were they encouraging them to do so), the lack of consistent labor,
and a feeling this was an opportune moment.
“I’ve been doing this for 43 years,” said
Gordon. “My wife, Nola, was a school teacher and never once complained. I thought
that at age 64 it was time to step back and maybe do a little traveling. We’ve
been on a few trips, but we haven’t been able to do a lot of things due to the
cows. I felt I owed her that consideration.”
“There’s no doubt milking cows every day
ties you down,” added Steve. “Every weekend and every holiday one of us had to
be at the farm.”
Gordon was quick to add, “I don’t want
anyone to feel sorry for us. We grew up in this business. It’s the life we
chose, and we’ve made a decent living.”
“Labor was a big issue in our decision,”
said Steve. “To continue our current level of operations or to expand it, we
needed reliable help.”
“Adults can make a better living doing
something else,” added Gordon, “while finding a young person to help during the
summer who has any experience of working on a farm is becoming rarer and rarer.
We could have downsized the herd and done all of the work ourselves, but then
if something happened to one of us, the other one was stuck.
“I wanted to go out on our terms,” he
added.
And so they have.
They’ll still have farm chores to do. The
sights, sounds, and smells of cattle remain. The cycle of planting and harvest
the various crops will continue.
But
the milk cows are gone. That way of life, for them, is over. Bittersweet? Yes.
But no regrets, they add.
“Dairy farming has been a good way of
life,” said Gordon and Steve. “The work could be hard and stressful, but we got
to raise our kids on the farm and work alongside them, our dad and mom were
able to remain on the farm until each of them passed away, and we made a decent
living for most of the years we did it. Now it’s time to try something
different.”
No comments:
Post a Comment