Dairy farming has never been an easy job. In the economy of the past few years, it has been especially tough.
For dairy farms around the nation and in Virginia, such as the Nuckols farm in Hanover County, 2009 was a low point as the prices farmers got for milk plunged along with the economy and as exports dropped off.
Milk prices have recovered since 2009.
"But the problem is all of our input costs have gone higher, too," said Matt Nuckols, who farms with his father, uncle and cousin on a 120-head cattle farm established by his grandparents. "Most of our feed cost is driven by the price of corn, which is extremely high now."
The volatility of milk prices is one of the hot topics for dairy farmers attending the National Holstein Convention in Richmond this week. The convention ends Saturday.
Discussions at the meeting include proposed federal legislation that would seek to stabilize prices and control supply.
"It makes it very hard for farmers to plan and manage when they are on that roller-coaster ride," of price volatility, said John M. Meyer, CEO of the Holstein Association USA Inc., a 30,000-member organization for farmers and breeders of the nation's most common dairy cow.
Hundreds of farmers from around the nation are attending the meeting at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
"The milk prices of two years ago were the toughest I have ever seen," said Bill Peck, a dairy farmer from Schuylerville, N.Y., who was among those on a tour group that visited some Virginia dairy farms Thursday, including the Nuckols farm.
Data collected by the University of Wisconsin from U.S. Department of Agriculture reports show that average milk prices nationwide dropped as low as $11.30 per hundredweight in 2009 but had rebounded to about $19.40 by this May.
But some farmers said their prices fell to $10 per hundredweight or lower — below the cost of production. And some have seen prices rise to around $21 to $23 this year.
"It's better now, but the cost of grain has doubled," Peck said.
Dairy farms in Virginia had cash receipts of about $264 million in 2009, down from about $396 million in 2008. Figures for 2010 are not available yet. Other agricultural commodities in Virginia also saw cash receipts drop sharply during the recession.
The collapse forced many farmers to dip into savings or refinance.
"You can't just turn it off from one day to the next — farmers have to keep milking," said Eric Paulson, executive secretary of the Virginia State Dairyman's Association. "Farmers came through it but, at the same time, it is going to take a while to rebound."
"We did lose some farms, and we had a lot of farmers decide they needed to diversify and spread the risk," he said.
As with other businesses, productivity gains have become the key to survival, and average annual production per cow has increased 8 percent on large farms and 10 percent in small farms since 2000.
In dairy farming, that means breeding has become more and more important, making genomics perhaps the second-hottest topic at this week's convention behind the economy.
The Nuckols family, for example, has supplemented its milk income by becoming recognized as a top breeder and seller of cows and bulls.
"Our niche is our genetics," Matt Nuckols said. "We sell seven or eight bulls a year."
But milk is still 90 percent of the farm's income.
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