Business
Another California exodus: Dairy cows leave for greener pastures in Texas, Arizona as farms squeezed
Michael Oosten’s grandparents have been dairy farmers within the Netherlands and immigrated to California within the Nineteen Twenties, beginning their very own dairy farm in Paramount in 1945 earlier than relocating to larger farms in Artesia and Bellflower.
Within the early Nineteen Seventies, they moved their farm to Chino, however determined to promote it in 2001 to a trucking firm positioned subsequent to an Amazon warehouse, which was constructed on land comprised of two different dairy farms.
Oosten, who for 18 years has owned Marvo Holsteins dairy farm in Lakeview, which provides milk to Land O’Lakes, stated dairy farming has declined in California for the reason that business’s peak in 2008. The business has been damage by shrinking actual property in Southern California, extra reasonably priced land in different states, rigorous allowing processes and the scarcity of water and different pure sources.
“Economics is the most important driver of farmers leaving to exit of state,” Oosten stated. “Milk pricing tends to be very aggressive in different states; the feed costs are decrease and the regulatory surroundings is best.”
Actual property, specifically, has performed a big position in additional dairies selecting to depart California, he stated.
Michael Oosten at his household’s dairy farm in Lakeview, Calif.
(Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Occasions)
“As city enlargement got here in and acquired near the farm, builders would are available and purchase the land and convert it into housing or industrial buildings,” he stated. “That’s the development of what’s occurred within the California dairy business. Extra lately within the final 20 years, lots of people have began to maneuver out of state.”
Marvo Holsteins is one in all about 1,200 dairies left in California, a big drop from the roughly 2,100 farms in 2001 and 20,000 farms in 1950, in response to Michael Boccadoro, government director of sustainability nonprofit Dairy Cares.
Though the variety of dairies within the state has declined by 94% within the final 70 years, farmers have been in a position to make up for the distinction by means of elevated milk manufacturing and improved cow consolation and breeding, Boccadoro stated.
“The concept that we’re constructing new dairies or rising manufacturing in California is a nonstarter,” he stated. “We haven’t constructed a brand new dairy in six to seven years. It’s simply not a great place in case you’re entering into the milk manufacturing enterprise.”
The state went from housing about 1.88 million dairy cows in 2008 to about 1.72 million right this moment — a lower of about 160,000 cows in 14 years, Boccadoro stated. The variety of cows within the state has lowered by about half a p.c to 1% yearly.
As an alternative of staying in California, dairy cows are being shipped to Texas, South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho and Kansas — states not usually identified for his or her dairy manufacturing. Boccadoro stated a shrinking demand for fluid milk and elevated demand for cheese, yogurt, butter, whey protein and different milk-related merchandise have pushed milk manufacturing to the Midwestern states. Demand for dairy has elevated by 200% for the reason that pandemic began in 2020.
Cows move by means of a cooling bathe after being milked at Marvo Holsteins dairy farm in Lakeview, Calif.
(Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Occasions)
“Traditionally, cows wanted to be near the market as a result of it was a contemporary milk market and milk has a brief shelf lifetime of about two weeks, so there was a variety of milk manufacturing on the West Coast and East Coast,” he stated. “With the brand new merchandise in demand, the dairy sector is seeing milk manufacturing transfer to the center elements of the nation due to the longer shelf lifetime of the merchandise.”
Nearer proximity to new manufacturing websites additionally has pushed cows out of California. Hilmar Cheese Co. opened a facility in Texas, with one other cheese and whey manufacturing plant within the works in Kansas. Final fall, Leprino Meals, one other main dairy manufacturing firm, introduced it was constructing a brand new facility in Lubbock, Texas.
One other massive query plaguing dairy farmers is whether or not they’ll see local weather change laws within the subsequent few years and what results they might have.
In 2016, California lawmakers handed the state’s Brief-Lived Local weather Pollutant Discount legislation, often called SB 1383, setting a 2030 aim to scale back methane emissions from the dairy and livestock industries by 40% beneath 2013 ranges, which quantities to about 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. If the California Air Assets Board determines in 2024 that the dairy business isn’t on observe for hitting its goal, it could actually begin implementing laws to restrict emissions.
Oosten stated potential laws might entail requiring dairies to put in anaerobic digesters — gadgets that management the decomposition of manure and convert methane into clear power — in addition to utilizing feed components to assist scale back methane produced by cows by means of belching.
“There’s that concern in California in that if we begin making mandates and laws, then we begin dropping our incentive funding, we begin dropping our choices and we begin dropping farms,” he stated. “A few of them may exit of enterprise, which might be a travesty for that household. … The opposite factor that’s going to occur is that they’re going to choose up, depart and exit of state. The methane nonetheless will get produced, they don’t need to cope with it over there and that’s the ‘leakage’ that we talked about.”
Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairies, a commerce group that represents nearly all of milk produced in California, agreed that the state is best off from a worldwide local weather perspective if extra dairy farmers keep in California.
Cows are milked at Marvo Holsteins dairy farm in Lakeview, Calif. The state has a aim of lowering methane emissions from the dairy business.
(Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Occasions)
“California’s exporting methane to totally different places, which implies processing and manufacturing can be leaving, which was the state’s income supply for offering inexperienced merchandise,” she stated. “It was designed to be a reward system, but when we don’t make them right here in California, they’re undoubtedly going to make them some other place.”
However David Clegern, a spokesperson for the California Air Assets Board, stated environmental laws have little to do with the cow exodus from California as a result of it isn’t even allowed to submit one for approval till 2024.
“Cattle costs are very excessive proper now, and jumped fairly a bit this summer time, so there could also be extra of a market drive there,” Clegernsaid.
Employees members are within the preliminary levels of creating a regulation on methane emissions by talking with neighborhood members and dealing teams, in response to Clegern.
“We gained’t begin till now we have an precise regulation,” he stated. “It takes a pair years to get by means of the general public processes and the legislative and different regulatory assessments. We’ve to verify it’s not interfering with federal laws and it scientifically is smart and it may be performed in an affordable and not-too-expensive manner.”
Invoice Magavern, coverage director for the Coalition for Clear Air, emphasised the significance of lowering methane, a short-lived local weather pollutant that lasts within the ambiance for about 12 years and has 80 occasions the warming affect of carbon dioxide.
“Along with the local weather change affect, there are additionally main native air pollution impacts from these big manufacturing facility farm operations, together with the methane itself that contributes to smog, which is already well-above authorized ranges within the San Joaquin Valley,” he stated. “The South Coast Air Basin and the San Joaquin Valley Air District are the 2 locations within the nation with the worst air air pollution, and that’s the place California’s dairy business is.”
Magavern expressed skepticism that potential laws are driving cows out of the state.
“I’ve been watching them foyer during the last 20 years and oppose each measure that may get them to scale back the air pollution they’re emitting in California,” he stated. “They’re resisting every part, and now they’re complaining after they’re not even being regulated is tell-tale.”
Cows are milked at Marvo Holsteins dairy farm in Lakeview, Calif.
(Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Occasions)
In response to a report by the California Air Assets Board launched this spring, the dairy and livestock sector — which accounts for greater than half of the state’s methane emissions — has lowered its annual emissions by simply over half. Dairy farmers should proceed modifying manure administration techniques, lowering livestock populations and utilizing digesters as a way to meet the 2030 aim.
However not everyone seems to be thrilled with the dairy digesters. Genevieve Amsalem, analysis and coverage director of the Central California Environmental Justice Community, stated dairy farms contribute to half of the particulate matter air pollution within the San Joaquin Valley. The digesters, she stated, are creating ammonia, which in flip causes air air pollution and endangers public well being.
“By putting in a dairy digester, you’re utilizing state cash to institutionalize this observe and setting it in stone,” she stated. “That’s an enormous concern that the state is institutionalizing these environmental catastrophes.”
Citing the excessive price of digesters — it takes about $6 million to put in one at a 2,000-cow farm — and the truth that his farms don’t use as a lot water as a result of they home their cows exterior, Oosten stated he’s at present in talks with digester corporations and isn’t against the concept of implementing them. As one of many incentives for lowering methane emissions, the state’s Dairy Digester Analysis & Improvement Program covers a portion of the prices of a digester whereas dairy farmers must pay for the remaining.
Oosten stated that his farms promote about 30% to 35% of their milking herd, comprised of about 2,500 cows, yearly for beef and that his livestock measurement has been comparatively secure regardless of the consolidation of his household’s farms over time.
“We’re not throwing animals out of the state simply to eliminate them,” he stated. “It’s based mostly on economics and wherever dairies are probably the most worthwhile.”