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BloombergBusinessweek March 2, 2020luredriversoffInterstate
5 atExit220,about 70 miles
outheastof Chicago, the
roadsideadslean hardonword-
play.A metalcorncobthesizeofa
speedboatcarriesthewords,VISIT
EAROFTEN!Asignwitha cowon
itpromisesADAIRYGOODTIME
FOR THE FAMILY! Another bill-
boardshowsa wide-eyedkidwitha
fruit-flavoredicecreaminhishand:
BERRYTEMPTING!
You’reinforevenmoreofthissort
ofthingif youtaketheexit.Atthe
BPgasstation,thelittlefoodmarket
insideiscalledtheDairycattessen.
There’sCentralBark,a greenarea
toletyourdogsrunaroundin,and
anadjacentCowféwhereyoucan
get cheesesandwichesand milk-
shakes.Thewatertowerismottled
likea Holstein,butjustaboutevery
otherstructureinsightconformstothered-and-whitemotif
oftheclassicAmericanbarnyard.Amongthemis a hotelwith
twotowerlikeextensionspaintedtoresemblegrainsilosand
anindoorpoolwitha slidethatlookslikea bigwetcow’s
tongue.Theseattractions,however,areforlater,afteryou
visitanotherbarnlikebuildingtwodoorsdown.Onitsface,
bigwhitelettersina Playskool-esquefontannounce:YOUR
ADVENTURESTARTSHERE.
ThisisFairOaksFarms,anIndianatouristattraction
designedtoentertainroad-wearyfamiliesanddeliverthem
backtothehighwayreassuredthatAmericanagricultureis
headedintherightdirection.Withmorethan33,000cows
thatpumpoutsome300,000gallonsofmilkdaily,it’salso
quitea bitmore.“Welcometoourhome,a functioning
Modernfarm,whereourAnimalsarethecenter,ledbya
teamwithcountryCharm,”saysa signbythecounterwhere
youbuyticketsforthetour.“There’snothingherethat’s
hidden.... Everything here is from the heart. If you’re ready
for Ag-venture, Fair Oaks Farms is the place to start.”
The grounds are immaculate, and if you’re in the mood to
celebrate milk—“the most wholesome food on earth,” accord-
ing to the recorded script that’s broadcast on the bus tour—
you’ll probably love it as much as Cargill Inc., Land O’Lakes
Inc., and other corporate partners apparently do. But outside
of these 19 acres, in much of the rest of rural America, dairy
hasn’t been celebrated much in recent years. Instead, it’s been
agonized over, lamented, even eulogized.
In Wisconsin alone, between two and three family dairy
farms go out of business every single day. (Some of these farms
still operate, but no longer as dairies.) That rate has held steady
for about three years, which is particularly striking given how
few farms remain left to fail. In the early 1970s, the state had
more than 75,000 dairies. Today it has about 7,400.Across the western border in
Minnesota, officials recently reported
that the median household income
rose last year to about $68,000,
roughly 10% higher than the national
average. Dairy farmers had nothing
to do with it. In 2017, the median
income for a dairy farm dipped just
shy of $44,000 in the state. In 2018, it
plunged all the way down to $14,697.
Half of Minnesota’s dairy farmers
failed to break even for the year.
There, too, thousands of dairy farms
have simply vanished.
In the midst of this mass extinc-
tion, a counterintuitive fact remains
true: Americans are consuming more
dairy products than ever before, pri-
marily because yogurt and cheese
have compensated for a steady drop
in fluid milk consumption. Americans
consumed 646 pounds of dairy per
personin 2018—the highest consumption rate in 56 years.
As small farms fold, the balance of production tilts further
toward huge, efficient, industrial dairy operations that can
more easily weather price downturns and manage a razor-
thin profit margin through the power of scale. Places, in other
words, like Fair Oaks Farms.
“Thirty years ago, when I got started, if you would have
asked me what a large farm was, I probably would have said
15 or 20 cows,somethinglikethat,”saysMarkStephenson,
thedirectorattheUniversityofWisconsinCenterforDairy
Profitability.Nowa concentratedanimalfeedingoperation—a
CAFO,asfactory-style farms like Fair Oaks are known—can
house thousands or even tens of thousands of cows. Today,
more than 53% of America’s milk is produced by less than 3%
of its farms. That helps explain how, in the face of a massive
reduction in the number of total dairies, the U.S. continues to
produce more milk and cheese than the market consumes—
in 2019, America’s cheese surplus reached 1.4 billion pounds.
“People still have this image of red barns, of cows in the
field,” Stephenson says. “We’ve all been there—it’s an image,
and it feels like a warm hug, somehow, and that’s what you
want to think of when you think of a dairy farm. But that’s
notthereality anymore.”erywhere you look at Fair Oaks, you’ll find
omething that imitates, if not exaggerates, the pre-
ise strain of countrified charm that industrial agri-
cultureis often blamed for destroying. It makes a direct and
unabashed attempt to tap into those warm-hug feelings with
facsimiles of the homespun and pastoral, while at the same
time celebrating the efficiencies that come from the advances
that replaced them. The tour guides plug a notion that at
times contradicts the imagery: Industrial-scale dairies may beYager at his farm in southern Wisconsin