WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |Local Dairy Farmers See Improvements

Westby, WI (WXOW)-- Dairy farming is a $27 Billion dollar a year industry for Wisconsin.  But with a decrease in milk prices, it's been a tough few years for dairy farmers.

Steven Holte and his wife have been in the dairy farming business since 1969.

When the dairy farming industry took a hit in 2009, Holte noticed many local farmers struggling.

"2009 was hard because the price of milk was really quite low," Holte said. "Inputs weren't extremely high like they are today, but it really was hard on the people that had to make payments on their farm."

But things have been slowly improving.  As of December 1, there were almost 12,000 milk cow herds registered in Wisconsin. That's still down about 700 from 2010, but it's less of a decline than previous years.

"Well it has recovered in the sense that the price of milk has gone up," Holte said. "But our expenses have also increased. So I'd say we're up about 10 percent from 2009."

Holte says despite the fact that there's less of a decline in milk cow herds, his concern is the ability of local dairy farmers to stay in business.

"What I'm seeing is that these small farmers are having a hard time surviving," Holte said. "For the simple reason that the young farmers aren't able to buy a farm because of the cost and the interest rates. And I see that the land prices are going up and it seems like big corporate farms are buying the land."

Holte says he hopes dairy farming can continue to be a community business. He sends all his milk to a local Westby creamery which provides about 90 jobs for the community.

Holt says in order for the small, local dairy farmers to continue to see improvement, the price of milk needs to stay high enough to compensate for the rising cost of doing business.