Editor’s note: This commentary is by John Klar, a Vermont grass-fed beef farmer, and an attorney and pastor who lives in Westfield.
[I]n some provinces of India it is a capital offense to slaughter a cow. Literally: so revered are cows, a person convicted of killing a cow can be executed.
In Vermont, the sacred cow is industrial milk production. For decades our federal and state governments have employed taxpayer money to subsidize milk prices. Vermont was the very first state to do this, in 1988 (New York Times, July 10, 1988). But the New York Times article cites 2,592 dairy farms in our state in 1988; despite such subsidies, we have now dropped below 1,000 (VPR reported 805 operating farms as of July 4, 2017, presumably including organic as well as conventional dairies).
Over this same period, small dairies have disappeared while large dairies have grown ever larger. (The farms mentioned in that 1988 New York Times article, including Ben Churchill in Barton, are now gone). Yet most large dairies are in huge debt, to the point where many have negative equity – they are essentially bank owned, despite that family name on the barn. Those large farms receive favorable financing, grants and subsidies that are largely unavailable to smaller farms — tens of millions of dollars (the EWG Farm Subsidy Database reports that Vermont received dairy subsidies of $123 million from 1995-2016).
Further, those larger dairies are polluting our waterways. A mere handful of today’s large confinement operations create more pollution than many hundreds of small family farms ever did in days gone past.
There is no relief in sight for conventional dairy prices, especially for a region as ill-suited to large-scale milk production as Vermont. No amount of immigrant laborers is going to bridge the profit shortfall. It is very costly indeed to keep this patient on life support indefinitely.
I know many farmers personally, and I do not wish to see conventional farms suffer – but they have been in decline for decades. When the wool price collapsed in the 1850s, the Vermont Legislature did not subsidize wool prices. If we had not supported dairy, it would have shifted to profitable use decades ago.
What of our state’s loggers? When timber prices decline steadily, we do not see government subsidies of that commodity. When small businesses decline because of Walmart, does the government subsidize retail prices? Has the government subsidized granite prices through that industry’s decline? Conventional beef prices are at an all-time low, but there is no state or federal teat to support beef prices.
Public resources should not be squandered on a failed business model. Subsidizing large farms is akin to subsidizing VHS tape manufacturers. Investing to help farmers diversify, or retrain, or connect with growing localvore markets, would be a productive way to encourage this flailing industry to transition to profitable, sustainable agricultural. Our state is indeed defined by agriculture, and will continue to be. Restoring small farms will preserve our agrarian landscapes while actually reducing pollution by sourcing healthy foods closer to home using fewer chemicals and fossil fuels. And small farms can do this profitably, continuing to enlarge Vermont’s market and its international goodwill for quality food without draining the coffers of the citizenry.
When Vermont boasted 5,000 dairy farms, it was boasting of 5,000 entrepreneurs. Vermont’s harsh climate compromises the ability to profitably produce milk, but those same conditions create an environment unique and favorable for cheese production. Vermont cannot keep pace with out-of-state demand for its specialty meats (grass-fed beef, poultry, sheep and goats), and there is a burgeoning market for processed Vermont meat products like sausages, bacons, kielbasa, etc. Our state must allocate resources to encourage profitable agricultural entrepreneurs: low-interest loans, or interim grants, can assist in nurturing future taxpayers and employers in place of endless subsidies that bear no hope of economic return.
Some have advocated an outright ban on conventional dairy. I here propose merely to end state and federal subsidies, and to assist existing conventional farmers as well as newcomers (we need more young farmers!!!) to transition to profitable business models. We wean citizens off welfare and into the workforce: Let us finally resolve to do the same with conventional dairy farms.
What might seem a callous approach toward the plight of our dairy community is actually just the sober truth. To endlessly support an unprofitable industry that is threatening our water quality is simply unconscionable, and lures many farmers into more and more debt and more and more hours of unprofitable labor, in false hope. Let us invest Vermont’s modest economic resources in long-term, clean solutions instead. Any farmer knows it is better to put down a sickly cow than to let it suffer. Even a sacred cow.
