The Executive Director of Minnesota Milk claims that economic hardship isn’t the primary reason dairy farmers are leaving the industry.
According to Lucas Sjostrom expected that Minnesota and Wisconsin would lose 7.4% of their dairy farms by 2023. “You actually see a lot of exits in 2014, 2018, a year like 2020, and last year, so those are some of our better dairy years, so it may be a symptom of people planning their exits rather than getting surprised and needing to exit.”
Sjostrom expresses worry about the rise of farmers leaving the dairy industry, while many are considering the economic feasibility of their firm in the future. “I think it’s really hard to paint a picture of why these happen when they happen because if we lost 55 farms in December, that’s 55 individual stories.”
Minnesota has 1,825 dairy farms as of December 1, 2023. That is 146 less than the start of the year. December data have not been disclosed.
Neighboring Wisconsin lost 455 dairy farms in 2023, bringing the total to 5,661 as of January 1st, 2024.
