I am an active Pierce County dairy farmer and have been an active dairy farmer my entire life following in the footsteps of generations of my ancestors. I deeply love agriculture and have lived the life of a farmer through good and bad times.

A ”romantic” version of agriculture prevails in our society. Dairy cows eating green grass in a pasture (while they are swatting off flies and are hot because they are all huddled under the same shade tree) is just one example of this idea. As a dairy farmer who loves to dairy farm, I will also be the first to tell you there are many moments that are not romantic and are hard. Instead of believing the romantic view of farming, I would encourage everyone to reach out to a farmer to get a real answer to your questions.

I will tell you that the life of a small-sized dairy farmer is grueling and hard on a family. I recall every year being overjoyed once Christmas or any holiday passed, because it meant we got our limited hired help back. And there were holidays we did not get to see extended family due to problems on the farm or weather interferences. Our kids never had Santa come on Christmas morning, because we were in the barn milking cows. We are extremely dedicated dairy farmers who watched vacationers leave while we were making hay. 

We don’t want your sympathy – we chose this life and love it. I am willing to bet our experiences as a small farm are the reasons, in part, why often times kids raised on a small farm decide not to follow in their parents’ footsteps and I don’t blame them. There are easier ways to make more money and have balance of work and play.

We are so grateful to have raised our family on our farm. A farm of any size is the best place to raise kids and our kids possess skills and a work ethic which will carry them far in life and set them apart.

I challenge each one of you who wants the small farm to come back to be honest with yourself and ask “Why didn’t I stay and farm?” 

I suspect your answer would be:

• I don’t want 100% of the responsibility for 100% of the work 100% of the time
• I don’t want a paycheck that fluctuates widely, often working for an income that does not even cover my expenses
• I want to work fewer hours and be able to go on vacation each year
• I want to spend time with family, especially at the holidays or in the summer
• I want to own my farm before I am 40 and not just work for my parents who retain ownership

In my opinion, the small farm will come back when these bullet points are achieved. When I was a kid, all kids spent their summer the same way, baling hay and picking rocks. We no longer live in a time when kids, nor their parents, want to spend their summers like this.

We need to be grateful to any size farm that works every day to produce food for us and our growing world population.

It saddens me to see attacks on any sector of the dairy industry in Pierce County. In my view, there are benefits to all sizes of farms and each farmer, as an independent businessperson, has the right to operate his/her farm in the manner that achieves personal and business goals.

The majority of dairy farmers I know, live every day with the decisions they make and understand their role as primary caretakers of their parcel of land, water and air. Most have also seen their parents or grandparents work through challenges with their livestock or crops using technology and innovation to improve their operations. Innovation and scientific advances are why farmers today can feed hundreds of people where our ancestors could only provide food for their immediate family.

It is detrimental to agriculture that only 1% of our population currently farms, because we are too busy farming and misinformation from those who do not farm spreads throughout our communities without being addressed. Dairy farming is always challenging and few people [99% of the population] could and would, do what we do 365 days each and every year.

I encourage you to reach out with an open mind to a farmer near you!