Heartbeat of America- farmers
Some may recall a short article I wrote about a year ago titled, ‘Small, but full of heart…life on a small farm’. The story was about Luke Eness and his family running their small dairy farm just West of Ontario, Wisconsin.
Recently, Luke and his wife Kayla invited me to attend a birthday celebration for their daughter Emberly who was turning two. I accepted the invitation and threw out the idea of doing a follow-up interview on how Eness and his family’s farm has weathered the economic impact of the pandemic. “It wasn’t good before (the pandemic), but it got a lot worse,” Eness said.
Many producers have been dumping milk due to a saturated market. Thankful, Eness stated that they haven’t had to dump milk yet, but acknowledged that their buyer has encouraged many to cut production, sell cows, or dry up cows. “Cutting production cuts profits,” he acknowledged. “It’s not really good for anybody when you aren’t making anything. They said they are offering a lower price now and it’s going to keep getting worse. I talked to the field guy the other day and he said it is still going to be decreasing even though things are opening up.”
As consumption has not necessarily declined, there is a consensus that feels a lot of it boils down to imports. “There is so much food that gets imported, it’s just crazy. We make it right here; it doesn’t make any sense why the companies are profiting more. With the pandemic, they shut down packing plants and different things like that and businesses, so they want to give us fifty-cents or a dollar on something, and then are turning around and making 8, 9, $10 a pound on products at the store. Somebody is making a lot of money. It’s a shame.”
Eness stressed that Walmart is not helping the situation as they now operate their own milk producing facilities that have had a ripple effect on farmers across the country. “They were buying a certain amount from other creameries and once they got enough volume, they cut those guys out. This pandemic is happening and all these other businesses are shutting down and selling less. Walmart is one of the people that were able to stay open. They actually can’t keep up with their production right now on what they would like to be selling. It’s just a mess that they are able to take such a big chunk of the market,” Eness said.
The last price Eness received per hundred weight was $12, but at the time of our interview, Eness admitted that it has probably already went down.
Cautiously optimistic, Eness and his family keep getting by every year, but feels it gets harder as time progresses. “I’m not as young as I used to be either. I’ve been dairy farming for 20 years. It just seems to be spread so thin with so many things that have to be done throughout the day to make everything happen. It’s gotta be adjusted, tweaked. There is a process for certain things, there are steps to make everything happen. It seems like by the end of the day after all that, what else did you get done? There aren’t many other jobs out there right now. With the pandemic, that affects things- What do you do? How do you stop one thing and start making money somewhere else?”
With Luke and his wife Kayla caring for their daughter Emberly, their child is a major consideration. “You have to get Emberly up every day and take her somewhere, and pay someone else to be raising her. So, we’d be missing time with her also and immediately you have lost half of your paycheck. You have to figure all those things out to see what would work. I’m sure a lot of people think that, no matter what type of job they take. You are missing out on time with your kid, and you are missing that amount on your check, how do you make things work. I think its fortunate if someone is able to keep doing it as long as possible, but at some point, it depends on money,” he said.
On government oversight he said, “You can’t win either when they can afford teams of attorneys to keep stuff held up in court forever. They don’t have the repercussions like us. If the state doesn’t like something that we are doing, they can shut us down tomorrow. Those guys (corporate farms) get caught all the time doing things that are against regulations, but nothing really ends up happening. As a kid, I didn’t realize it could be like that. In school they tell you the government stops monopolies, but that isn’t true. There are lobbyists that make millions of dollars a year to talk to politicians about the way businesses are run. There are so many people out there that want to do this job. To think there are others out there that are so greedy that they can’t let everyone else have a little.”
As one of the more regulated industries, Eness sees the need for some regulation to keep a fair playing field, but feels the government “regulates the piss out of the American farmer”. “They don’t have the harsh inspections in a lot of other countries, but we are accepting food from them. I don’t understand why we get food from other countries when we have the same foods here. We ship things out and get stuff back in that is the same. I think the quality would be better if the government stepped back a little. You can freeze milk for quite an extended amount of time and keep it good. With the pasteurization and stuff, if people were a little more educated about it. It was invented before refrigerators, and now you have a date on the milk and it might not keep as long, but as long as you know when it is spoiled and how much you need, it wouldn’t have to be as processed. I think that would be better for people’s health. The creamery gives you a report that says your cell count is this, your pi count is this, and your check is based on those numbers, but it totally benefits them to screw you every time. They could say this number is off a little so we deducted some, but they are not taking a single loss. They sell it for the same price. I think it should be a separate company who does the test from who pays you.”
Eness’ animals he has had since they were calves and sees them like his pets. If he had to let them go, he has a hard time thinking about what would happen to them. Unfortunately, the answer is that they would go to the auction barn and sold for a mere fraction of what the Eness’ have invested in them, not to mention the emotional investment. “The money would be gone in no time. You can’t go buy other ones with that money.”
Luke is not giving up though, and admits there is some pure old stubbornness in him. “I don’t like to be pushed, so I fight back. They try to squish everybody out, but I don’t give up. That’s probably the thing that has gotten me further than anything. I just keep going when a lot of people would just quit,” he said with a grin.
Recalling when he attended a boot camp for six months, Eness said, “You think ‘I didn’t go through all the s*** I went through yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that, and turn around for nothing. If I quit today then everything else I did, was for nothing.”
Even with as busy as it can get, and all the work it can be sometimes, he feels things can be adjusted a little bit more. “In the middle of the day time, you can do some type of activity- go to the creek, cut some wood, some kind of bonding thing. The country is something I’ve always liked about that. Depending on the seasons, there is all kinds of stuff you can get out and do. Wood cutting is something I do a lot and they (Kayla and Emberly) go with. Emberly is pretty good at that. She will sit in the back of the truck if I’m pulling out a tree with it. She doesn’t care. Some people are sitting around in a cubicle forty hours a week or more, then part of the routine on the weekend has to be exercising to offset all of that sitting and it doesn’t really work out. That is one thing that I do enjoy and don’t have to worry about. I’m always active and always doing something. I don’t have to worry about the stuff that certain jobs don’t give you, like the opportunity to get that exercise or fresh air.”
When asked what he thinks would help the current agricultural duress, Eness had this to say, “The best thing I think the government could do for the farmers, is to leave them alone a little bit and back away from the situation a little bit. It seems like the more involved they get, the more hands there is in that chain of people getting things done, and the less it ends up benefitting the farmer in the end. Like the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) program that is tied to the DOA (Department of Agriculture). That looked like a good idea at first, so you’d have a place for your goods to go and the prices are stabilized, but every time the DOA gets money SNAP takes a chunk of it as well.” Eness’ concern over SNAP is that none of that money goes directly to benefit farming whatsoever and feels it doesn’t work out good for everyone.
As the old saying goes, ‘only time will tell’, one thing is certain, the tenacity of farmers across the nation should never be underestimated. After all, much of this country was built on the back of our farmers. Farmers that all too often are not thought of. Farmers are human beings that are dedicated to feeding all of us. So, when do they get their fair share?
For Luke, Kayla, and Emberly, their small dairy farm will always be full of heart and forever an important part of Americana.
