'Everyone is just trying to feed America'
In 2023, the cost of farmland rose by 7%, which means that land is becoming increasingly unaffordable to the younger generation of family farmers.
But is it worth it?
"There's a family down the road that owns the last working dairy farm in the county," said Taylor Rhodes, owner of Frank's Produce and Greenhouses in Elkridge, Maryland. "It costs more money to turn the lights on to milk the cows. It's the last business I'd want to be in. They're the hardest-working people for such little money."
Rhodes is referring to Maple Dell Farm in Howard County, Marland, which is owned by Derek Patrick. Patrick studied Dairy Herd Management at the University of Madison-Wisconsin. He is part of the third generation of his family to milk cows and the sixth generation to farm.
"It's something else," said Patrick. "Some days, it's questionable."
Patrick and his crew, consisting of mostly family members, milk their cows twice per day; once at 3 a.m. and again at 3 p.m. Once the cows are milked, everything used is thoroughly cleaned to meet USDA standards, and the milk is stored in a bulk tank that holds about 28,000 pounds to be picked up every other day. From there, it is shipped to a plant and pasturized elsewhere.
"It goes all over the place" Patrick said of the fluctuation of animal byproduct prices. "It has the ebbs and flows of the stock market."
While the prices of milk sold from Maple Dell Farm have generally stayed the same for Patrick's entire life, the prices of milk in stores have continued to rise.
"Some months, we see crazy high prices," he said. "But where is it all going? We would get $20 per 100 pounds of milk. Every 100 pounds of milk we're producing, we'll receive $20 from that 8.3 gallons of milk."
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In January 2023, the U.S. saw egg prices soar to a historical high, over $4 for a dozen. Farmers who have to buy feed for animals, such as chickens, have seen the prices of corn and soybeans increase, too. When the cost of feed increases as it has, the income from animal products isn't enough to sustain a comfortable farm life.
"More cows doesn't equal more money," said Patrick. "That's just not really the case. You have to ramp up everything you do to make more money."
The Patrick-owned farm is around 450 acres for the cows pasture, and the family rents another 1,200 acres for crops like corn, soybeans and sunflower fields. The farm houses close to 400 cows, including 120 Holsteins and 40 Ayrshires.
To make up for the struggles of the dairy farming industry, the Patrick family planted two stunning sunflower fields that are open to the public. The younger generation of farmers in the family are often looking for new and exciting ways to pivot.
"We wonder how we can make it fun for kids. Kids love coming out to the farm, seeing cows, feeding calf," Patrick said. "It's not looked on as the best idea from older generations. They're asking why we're going to do a petting zoo, but we need to find ways to adapt and make it easier for ourselves."
Rhodes, on the other hand, raises, breeds and processes her cattle for butchering. She has an extensive background working with both agriculture and livestock, participated in 4H and studied Agriculture, Business and Animal Science at West Virginia University. Although she has previous experience using artificial insemination to impregnate cows, she doesn't currently use this technique to populate her farm.
"I had 18 cows at the same time, but I can't process that many at once," she said. She explained that she sold six cows to make room and that she uses one bull for breeding, as inbreeding and linebreeding don't matter in terms of cow reproduction, but she explained that it is important to add new genetics to a herd.
Elvis, the lone bull, is getting too big for the younger female cows, or heifers, but Rhodes is hesitant to rotate him out for a new one.
"Bulls are hard to handle," she said. "My bull is super nice, which is rare." In 2021, Rhodes purchased 30 cows for her farm, both red and black Angus.
"I have a set of mothers I keep for a couple years," she said. "It takes about 18 months to get calves from birth to market weight, which is 800-1,000 pounds."
Since then, Rhodes has only processed three of her own cows.
"It takes three weeks at the butcher to dry age the meat," said Rhodes. "You get all the meat you can: organs, bones, liver, ox tail."
Rhodes explains that a butcher measures by taking the hanging weight and cutting in half. One cow weighed 325.5 pounds on one side and 329 pounds on the other, which means she received around 750 pounds of meat from one cow alone. She feels lucky to get to process her meat for resale as she can see how much she makes selling it on a daily basis.
"There are not many butchers around here that process animals," she explained. "You can't butcher in your backyard for resale, though. In order to sell, the meat needs to be processed and packaged for resale by a butcher."
However, it is solely up to her to keep tabs on how much she's making. "I have to make sure I'm not pricing my meat too high, but I need to make money, too," she said. Rhodes prices her own meat and pays attention to which cuts are selling well and which are not. If a specific cut isn't selling, she marks the prices down to sell and make more room in the freezer. If she notices that a cut is flying off the shelves, she'll adjust the prices to best match the market.
"I make it fair."
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Rhodes sells her meat frozen as it is less of a headache and lasts for many more days than meat sold in an open-air market. She explained that selling meat organically is also a lengthy process and doesn't always offer the same rate of return. To Rhodes, it is not worth to raise and process cattle organically.
Cows require a ton of maintenance, and in the farming industry, they are considered a risk because of the cost to purchase, raise, maintain and butcher them. Farmers aren't only purchasing cattle and feeding them, though. They're also shelling out cash for gates, hayseeds, shoots, traps, livestock trailers and more, which quickly adds up.
The gestation period for cows is not nearly as quick as that of pigs. Cows are pregnant for nine months, and they typically only birth one calf at a time.
"I have to look at my herd and say, 'Oh, she’s 28 and didn't get pregnant this year,'" Rhodes said. "You have to get rid of your old girls, the ones with the fertility issues, the mean moms, because there are kids around. I don't need any mean cows."
And while raising cattle can be profitable, farmers need a ton of land to make it a lucrative business. Rhodes' farm has around 50 acres of pasture for the nearly 40 cows she owns, but with the rising cost of farmland, it will be much more difficult to purchase more land.
USDA data shows the average price of farmland in the U.S. is $4,080 dollars per acre. In Iowa it is $9,930. In California, $12,400. And in Maryland, an acre of land goes for about $9,700. So, if Rhodes were looking to double the number of cows she owns to produce more meat, she'd have to double her pasture size for the cows. This puts her farmland bill at a whopping $485,000 for 50 acres.
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And if Patrick were to need more room for his dairy cows as the last dairy farmer in Howard County, he could be looking at a $4,365,000 tab.
While some family farmers in the U.S. are working hard for minimal payback, they're proud of the work they do and are teaching their children the ropes at very young ages.
"We put out a quality product in the United States of America," Patrick said. "America does an awesome job with food safety and an excellent job creating quality products for people to consume. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else."
And for Rhodes, she's just trying to help feed your families.
"Small family farmers are working really hard to provide quality products to put on your plate," she said. "It's a lot of heartache. It's a lot. Everyone is just trying to feed America."