Milk, cheese, ice cream, butter.

The list of dairy-based or dairy-related products is virtually endless. The importance of dairy as a key source of calcium is well documented.

What is less known is the importance dairymen and women who work long hours to bring milk to the market through operations scattered throughout The T&D Region.

These farmers and their respective operations are in the spotlight during the 69th annual celebration of June Dairy Month 2006.

Bowman dairy farmer W.F. Jaques III entered into the dairy industry in 1983 at the age of 30.

Today, he milks about 175 cows, but the 53-year-old says his dairy days may be numbered as low milk prices combined with high shipping costs from rising gasoline prices are cutting into profits.

“Prices are depressed at this point,” Jaques said, noting current milk prices are about $13 or near record lows experienced about six years ago. “It is a very low number. Our break-even cost is around $17. You just hope to make enough during the good years to cover the bad years.”

Milk prices are on top of the difficulty in finding good available labor — “It is very difficult to find people seven days a week and 24 hours a day” — and having to operate within strict governmental regulations.

Jaques said these challenges as well as and other more profitable job opportunities have all but discouraged him from encouraging his college-age son from entering into the business.

“They can make a living a whole lot easier than fighting this thing every day,” Jaques said. “Truthfully, I don’t see, at least in the Bowman area ... I don’t see a lot of dairy here in a good many years.”

Former Bowman dairy farmer Thomas Turner said he got out of the business about a year ago. Turner was co-owner of Triple A Farm before selling his interests in the 250-herd farm.

“I did it for 20 years and wanted to spend energy to do something else,” he said, noting that he still farms. “ I did not want to fight it anymore.”

-- Dying breed

Jaques’ suspicions and Turner’s exiting the industry both are testimony to the fact that the dairy industry is shrinking in The T&D Region.

Orangeburg County has about 10 full-time dairy farmers, which is down from about 50 in 1985.

Bamberg County, too, has seen the number of dairies fall during the same time period from 24 to about 10.

On average, herd counts range from 150-180 head, with only a small number of farmers conducting operations of 400 to 600 head.

In 2005, Orangeburg County’s total milk production was 45,777 pounds, down from 49,223 pounds in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Department of Statistical Services.

The total ranked the county second in the state of the nine counties where milk production is significant enough to be counted.

The average number of cows milked in 2005 was 2,950, with an average milk production per cow of 15,518 pounds.

In Bamberg County in 2005, total milk production was 26,736 pounds, up from 24,736 pounds in 2004. The county ranked third in the state in milk production.

The average number of cows milked in the county during 2005 was 1,500, with average milk production per cow of 17,824 pounds.

Calhoun County does not have any dairies, said Charles Davis, county extension agent.

“There have been no dairies in Calhoun County probably in the last 20 years,” Davis said, noting when he arrived in the county about 17 years ago there was a small dairy. “They basically don’t milk cows anymore, though they do make and sell ice cream.”

Statewide in 2005, there were 18,000 head of dairy cows with an average 16,111 pounds of milk produced per cow and with total production of 290 million pounds.

-- Milking the dairy farmer

Orangeburg County Clemson Extension agent Marion Hiers said Jaques’ case is par for the course in the dairy industry.

Milk prices continue to be a major player.

“If milk prices stay low, we will lose some more,” Hiers said. “Some of those are trying to hang on and keep going and trying to make it.”

Currently, milk prices are hovering around $13 per 100 pounds. Last year, prices were $15 per 100 pounds.

“It is still a great industry and a great product and it is one I hate to see being lost,” Hiers said. “It has been a tough business.”

In addition to low milk prices, Hiers said dairy farmers are having to deal with rising feed and fuel prices that cut into costs, plus lower profit margins. This is particularly true for a state that produces about 30 percent of its own milk supply and imports 70 percent from other states.

Mother Nature with her hot and humid summers is also a kink in the chain.

“It impacts the cows by feed intake,” Hiers said. “You have to keep them sprinkled and cool as much as you can. If you can’t get rid of the impact, milk will go the same way.”

And then there are governmental regulations, an influx of retirees moving into rural areas as well as the traditional competition in the Midwest.

“They (DHEC regs) are among the strictest in the nation,” Hiers said. “You have to have adequate acres to apply the waste to and operate a facility of substantial size.”

If this were not enough, President Bush’s budget proposal this year calls for a new tax on dairy farmers along with reductions to two dairy price-support programs.

The budget calls for a 3-cent tax per hundredweight of milk, which translates into about $720 a year for an average-sized dairy farm.

It calls for changes in the way the Department of Agriculture sets dairy support prices, aimed at minimizing payments to farmers. And it also proposes a 5 percent cut to all crop payments, including the Milk Income Loss Contract program, known as MILC. MILC pays dairy farmers cash when milk prices fall below certain levels. The final budget is usually approved in September, with the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The MILC program pays farmers only on their first 2.4 million gallons of milk each year.

“That helps some of the smaller guys, but it does not do for the bigger guys,” Hiers said.

All these issues, Hiers said, likely will prevent any future growth locally and could continue to exacerbate the industry decline.

“If anything it is not going to get any larger,” he said, noting the age of the current dairyman will also see to it that the industry does not continue. “Why keep fighting this to lose money and eating away equity that you have worked a lifetime for. There will be a time when people say enough is enough.”

And when people get out of the dairy industry, it may be the beginning of the end.

“Once you lose land from agriculture into whatever, it will never go back,” Hiers said. “This is still an agrarian-type of area, but it is still growing and people are coming in here. It makes it tough to sustain any kind of large farm when competing against that.”

-- Weathers says industry remains important

South Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture and Bowman dairy farmer Hugh Weathers said the S.C. Department of Agriculture is administering the legislation passed last year by the state General Assembly to preserve the dairy industry in the state.

The dairy tax credit bill allows farmers to receive income tax credits based on the amount of milk produced and sold. Farmers can take advantage of the credit when the USDA Class 1 of price fluid milk drops below the production price during any given year.

Weathers said the department is not in favor of President Bush’s proposal to cut some of the MILC program. He cited the program as playing a crucial role in keeping the nation’s milk supply viable.

In the interim, Weathers said the SCDA is working with dairy cooperatives and the S.C. Department of Commerce to attract dairy to the state in an effort to increase the in-state milk production. Weathers said the department is currently working on bringing significant agricultural investments to South Carolina.

“We would like to have a 1,000-dairy operation to choose South Carolina,” Weathers said. “In many of our counties, agriculture is the number one economy in that county.”

-- T&D Staff Writer Gene Zaleski can be reached by e-mail at gzaleski@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5551. Discuss this and other stories on-line at TheTandD.com.

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