The often-written-about theme of family farm transfer is our topic today. In the timespan of one week, I visited two dairy farms at two very different places.A young dairy farm family has just taken over the daily operations of a small Holstein dairy. Small refers to herd size: about 60 cows.

Gangwer mike
Mike Gangwer

They have moved to the large farmhouse sitting about 300 feet from the milking facility.

The married daughter’s parents have moved out and now live a quarter-mile down the road. The son-in-law, 32 years old, completed a two-year agricultural program at one of New York’s SUNY campuses.

He worked in construction for a few years and helped out on the farm on weekends. His wife, daughter number two of three daughters, loved the cows, and especially the calves, and grew up in 4-H and showing cattle at fairs. They discussed going into farming full-time, and given the age of her parents – late 60s – felt this is the time to make the huge move.

The son-in-law drew up a sample budget including a payment schedule for buying the equipment and cows. The land base will not be sold but leased. I understand a lawyer and an accountant were consulted (several times), and a family meeting was held one afternoon.

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The older generation had farmed this farm for more than 40 years, and in fact, she had been born on this farm 67 years ago. Like her daughter, she had married someone in construction, and together they purchased a herd of cows.

Interestingly, the herd size of about 60 cows has remained this same number all these years. There are 32 tiestalls on each side of the milking barn with overhead pipeline. A 1,000-gallon bulk tank sits in the milk house.

The older-generation couple will now travel. They already have plans to be in Arizona this winter. They both have minor health problems, but they are able to travel and enjoy warmer weather.

The younger couple has their hands full. Although the price of milk is relatively high right now, in the last two years many more bull calves have been born than heifers; the concern is having enough replacement heifers to maintain the 60-cow herd. They also are concerned about the cost of equipment.

They have hay and silage equipment (round bales) but have a small field of corn silage custom-chopped. The silage is stored in a wooden silo held upright with a series of anchor cables. They already know that soon the structure will no longer be used. They may have the custom-chopper put the corn silage into Ag Bags.

And they have two children that are not quite teenagers. Both are boys and both help a little on the farm. We all know growing up on a farm is always beneficial, and so these two youngsters will begin 4-H soon and maybe FFA later. Yes, they show dairy heifers at the county fair.

One downside to this story is: This young couple does not have relief. That is nobody to help them if they want to take a day off or need extra help during haying season. I suggested they find someone and soon.

I am certain mental and physical health must include a time of rest at any age. Given the demands of milking cows, this is more important than we can actually measure. Although they have her parents a quarter-mile down the road to help when they are home.

Yesterday, I was out to complete a status review for a dairyman with about 50 cows. This is a grazing dairy. The cows are milked in a tiestall barn with an overhead pipeline and small bulk tank. The milking barn itself is more than 100 years old.

The owners are also in their late 60s. They have three children, all successfully employed, and one self-employed. They live far off the farm and, importantly, they are not interested in returning to the farm. The operation is well-kept and maintained with a SlurryStore storage system and a Houle manure tanker.

I was completing a comprehensive review, so I looked at all the fields. The pastures were in superb shape. A combination of orchardgrass, clover and just a little bit of alfalfa made for ideal forage. The hay equipment is nearly new and a nice fleet of Ford tractors sits in the yard.

They have a good employee. By good, I mean he is good with cows and careful with equipment and can be counted on to be where he is supposed to be. The owner’s wife works off the farm, and to some extent he does too, managing a milking equipment repair business.

He shows no signs of slowing down. I asked him what happens when he wants to slow down or actually leave the dairy business, and he simply said he does not give these questions much thought. Perhaps one option is selling the cow herd and equipment to the employee. But we did not talk about this.

So here we have two similar farms; one is transitioning to the next generation within the family, and the other is not. For the one that is not, at least here in the New York City Watershed, the cows are usually sold and replaced with beef animals.

Or perhaps no animals at all, and the land remains in hay or grass silage production. About a month ago while conducting a status review in the next county over (Green County), the landowner, who is my age, had sold the cows five years ago as his handful of kids showed no interest in milking cows, so a very large 160-cow dairy facility was gutted so equipment can be parked in it.

He has 30 beef cow-calf pairs and a handful of horses, but no dairy herd. He sells a lot of hay to horse owners near New York City, and in the winter, he and his wife travel.

On another farm, there is a landowner with a tenant dairyman milking his own cows. The owner does not know what will happen when the tenant, a man in his early 70s, decides to quit. The landowner told me the milking facilities have years of life left in them and he hopes to find another tenant – this time a younger man with a family and lots of energy.

The dairy business, and in fact all of farming, is dynamic and always changing. But one factor that does not change is at some point an owner will turn over the operation to a family member, or maybe an employee or new tenant, or simply go out of business. Everywhere I go and visit, there are empty dairy barns that once had cows in them. For many different reasons, the herd is gone. The cows move to another farm.

There is more to a farm than the farm itself. The farm family and the energy they bring and the vision they have for staying in the dairy business is essential if we are to have an enduring dairy industry.

Some might say we no longer need a young family trying to make a living on a 60-cow dairy herd milked in a tiestall barn. I disagree. In fact we need them just like we need the youngsters taking on a huge CAFO-sized farm as part of a completely different business model.

Could be that the young employee on the grazing dairy will get an offer someday. Could be a young man with a few heifers that are near calving may ask a gentleman to be the next tenant on a dairy farm that is still in good operating shape.

And maybe, there is a young man or woman attending a university somewhere that looks out the classroom window and says, “I want to farm.” I am certain there is more to fulfilling this want than just money and equity and the business model. I have seen it here in New York. In seemingly the most difficult of conditions and endless work, a young couple figures it out.

In fact, couples that work together for a common goal of staying in business, building equity and raising a family are essential for our industry … and all of farming. From my perspective, whether the herd size is 60 cows in a tiestall barn or 600 cows in a milking parlor is secondary to putting together a plan and then implementing it.

There is room for all. PD