Sienna, Autumn, Karen, Maeve, and Allan Bathalon pose with their dogs and Holstein dairy cows at their organic farm, Paddlebridge Holsteins in Westfield. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar
Editor’s note: This story by Bethany Dunbar first appeared in the Barton Chronicle. It comes to vtdigger.org through a news exchange between the two publications.
WESTFIELD — Life on an organic dairy farm isn’t any easier than conventional farming, but Karen and Allan Bathalon of Paddlebridge Holsteins are glad they made the switch.
That’s because, like the other 39 organic farmers in Orleans County, they are losing less money than their conventional counterparts.
Allan Bathalon has been employed as a trucker and factory worker, but he always wanted to get back to farming. He and Karen both grew up on farms, and so when they started their own conventional dairy operation in 1998 they knew what they were doing. But the boom-bust prices for conventional milk made it so difficult for them to make ends meet they decided to transition to organic dairying in 2003.
Karen Bathalon calls it “a business decision.” Since the Bathalons’ dairy operation was certified organic in 2004, they have experienced less market fluctuation and higher prices.
“The big thing is our price is stable,” Allan Bathalon said.
SUBHEAD: A roller coaster ride
Prices have been anything but stable for conventional farmers over the last three years. In 2007, the average price for a hundredweight or 11.6 gallons of milk was $19.21. Last year, the price dipped to $11.30 a hundredweight – a 30-year low. In 2009, the state lost 62 dairy operations as a result of the downturn. Vermont now has 1,017 conventional and organic farms.
Though the price has gone up recently — the all-milk price for conventional farmers in April went up to $14.60 a hundredweight or $1.26 a gallon, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture – it still doesn’t cover the cost of production, which is roughly $18 per hundredweight, or $1.69 a gallon. Prices are expected to go above $16 per hundredweight this summer, according to Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Roger Allbee.
Unlike most conventional dairy farmers these days, whose milk check is determined by a complicated federal plan, the Bathalons’ milk price is determined by the cooperative that buys their milk.
The average milk price for organic dairy farms in New England is about $26 a hundredweight ($2.24 per gallon), according to Ed Maltby, of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance based in Massachusetts. The cost of production is $25 to $30 per hundredweight (or $2.16 to $2.58 a gallon), based on information from USDA and Maltby.
Quota system, pasture rules for organic
Organic dairy farmers haven’t seen dramatic price fluctuations, but the demand for organic milk dropped at the nadir of the recession, and for the first time the industry had an oversupply of milk. In response, the two large cooperatives, Horizon and Organic Valley, that buy milk from Vermont farmers decided to purchase less in order to keep prices from fluctuating.
Organic Valley instituted a quota system last year, Maltby said, and the dairy processor is buying 7 percent less milk than it did last year.
Horizon asked producers to reduce production by 5 to 10 percent in the past year.
A new pasture rule for organic farmers should help to stem the oversupply problem, according to Dave Rogers of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont.
Essentially, the new federal rule requires the same thing Vermont organic farmers have been doing for years: Cows must be on pasture 120 days a year and 30 percent of their dry matter intake must be from grass. They also must have an opportunity to get outside for exercise and fresh air every day.
Maltby said the new pasture rule will bolster consumer confidence. “It’s third-party certified,” he said. “It’s not a marketing trick.”
It will also help to curb the organic milk oversupply problem. Some western dairy operations, which can produce milk at much less cost, have herds that number in the thousands. Vermont, by comparison, has very small herds. Most of the state’s 200 organic dairy operations have fewer than 100 cows.
“The large-scale producers, particularly out west, have had to trim their herds back,” Rogers said.
Maltby said if the country wants all its milk from huge farms out west, that’s one thing. But he believes consumers want to get their milk from smaller farms all around the country. And if that’s the case, policy should reflect cost of production differences in different regions, he suggested.
“Any solution can’t just be political,” he added. The farmers themselves and the dairy industry must get together, he said.
Organic farmers having a tough time, too
Recently, Horizon allowed farmers to return to original production levels from a year ago, and that’s a sign, Maltby said, that the organic market might be picking up again, but some farmers are better positioned to weather the after affects of the price downturn than others.
Well-established organic dairies that have little debt are holding their own, Maltby said. The farmers that are carrying a low debt load but are in the middle of transitioning from conventional to organic, which costs about $50,000 to $60,000 a farm, are struggling a bit more, he said. New farmers or those who made the transition right before the recession, Maltby said, have been hurt most.
Though farmers are finding ways to cut costs, such as growing their own grain, Rogers agrees that the fiscal situation for many is dicey right now.
“Most organic dairy farmers are having a tough time,” he said. “This is an incredibly deep recession, so sales of everything has dropped.”
The Bathalons are no exception. They say money is tight, though they are making ends meet.
“We’re not extravagant,” said Karen Bathalon.
The family of six doesn’t take vacations, and they enjoy the rhythm of farm life — the seasonal clock that says it’s time to hay or milk or plant crops.
“It’s almost like being in synch with something,” Bathalon.
Farming organically, the pressure is off to make as much milk. The herd average is down around 17,000 pounds.
“When we started farming our goal was milk production,” Karen Bathalon said, and the average amount of milk each cow in the herd made in a year reached 24,000 pounds.
They didn’t make the change for philosophical or environmental reasons, but now that they are using organic techniques, they believe their cows are healthier. Allan Bathalon said he follows the rules — even when they don’t seem sensible to him — because they are important to organic consumers.
“If you love your animals, once you start being organic you just know it’s so much better,” Karen Bathalon said.
