Small dairies rely on direct relationships to survive
You’ve heard it before: buy local. But have you thought about why? When you buy locally-produced goods you keep those dollars in your communities. The local tax base is supported, local jobs are created and locally-made goods have a lower carbon footprint than those made far away and shipped in.
At Corstar Farm, Cory and Kristen Salzl care for a small heard of registered Milking Shorthorn dairy cattle, both holding down full-time jobs on top of running the farm. Kristen is the Central Region Coordinator for Minnesota Dairy Initiatives and Cory is a dairy inspector for the state of Minnesota.
Dairy farmers in Minnesota and across the country are struggling financially and many small dairies have shut down in recent years. There are a number of contributing factors, including flat or falling commodity pricing, overproduction and the expansion of the get-big-or-go-home approach of CAFOs.
In the many years I’ve been covering the food system, the dairy industry is perhaps the most impacted by a direct farmer-maker relationship. Rather than selling into the commodity market, where the farmer has absolutely no control over pricing, creating direct relationships with makers like Alemar Cheese allows the farmer to negotiate their own price.
Many small dairies are also choosing to create value-added products, like cheese — a pound of cheese costs a lot more than a pound of milk. And others, like Mill-King Milk , which we covered in our first season, are creating their own brand and marketing their milk, cream and other products to grocery stores and chefs.
For a personal take on this issue, read this article on Civil Eats, which was reprinted, with permission, from a blog entry by Wisconsin farmer Abe Voelker.
Corstar Farm
59449 Csah 3, Litchfield, MN