Breaking free from the chains of the past Where
truth moves faster than a Holstein calf No law
waiting on some printed page We're charting new
ground in the digital age From genomic codes
to robot facts We cut through the noise, no hold
them back not your daddy's dairy news tonight
we're sparking Welcome back to the Bullvine Podcast,
where we cut through dairy industry noise to
get you the operational insights that actually
matter for your operation. And today, we're doing
a deep dive into a feature piece that honestly
should be mandatory reading for every producer,
manager, lender. Everyone in the country, really.
Which one is this? It's dairy's eight -hour breaking
point, labor, biology, and economics. And this
one, well, it has layers. It's definitely going
to challenge some core assumptions, particularly
around how much buffer or maybe... how little
buffer we truly have in our current production
model. Okay, let's unpack this immediately then.
Why this topic right now? I mean, we saw those
very public enforcement actions up in Vermont
recently, didn't we? Exactly. That really brought
this vulnerability right out into the open and
forced producers to confront a crisis scenario
that, you know, maybe they always hoped was just
theoretical. Right. We're not talking about slow
policy shifts anymore. This is immediate. This
is like catastrophic operational risk staring
you in the face. And that's why this is so critical.
This isn't just abstract politics or some long
-term economic trend we can ignore for now. The
stakes here are profoundly, almost terrifyingly
biological. Biological? How so? Well, if the
current labor structure gets, you know, abruptly
destabilized, someone leaves, someone's removed,
the risk is immediate. It's your cow herd. It's
utter health. And ultimately, it's the viability
of your entire operation. Measurable within a
single shift. Wow. Okay. And the feature piece
makes it clear this isn't just hypothetical risk.
It's actually modeled out, isn't it? They talk
about potential cascading failures. They do across
the entire food system. And... Okay, let's just
put the controversy out there right away. We're
going to get into these Texas A &M economic models
that project, well, a pretty catastrophic price
increase for milk if the labor structure fail.
Yeah, the numbers are pretty staggering. We're
talking about pushing a gallon of milk, maybe
around $4 now, up to, what, $7 .60? $7 .60. Yeah.
That's not just a price fluctuation. As you said,
that's a full -on food system shock. That number
alone, $7 .60, should make everyone sit up and
pay attention, shouldn't it? Absolutely. Yeah.
It just highlights that the fundamentals of the
entire U .S. dairy supply are tied directly to
this. often unstable, often ignored labor system,
a system that's just incredibly vulnerable to
external shocks. OK, so let's start with that
central idea, the eight hour breaking point.
This is where biology basically dictates the
terms to the politics and economics of dairy
farming. Right. The article hammers this home.
This breaking point is that incredibly narrow
window between losing labor, say essential staff
leaving or being removed. Yeah. and finding yourself
in a herd -wide biological crisis. And it's the
speed that's terrifying, you mentioned. Yeah,
absolutely. As producers, you know, we schedule
everything day to day, but have we really modeled
what happens if there's a catastrophic disruption?
Like, really modeled it. Probably not in this
detail. The source uses that horrifyingly clear
Vermont anecdote. Eight essential workers arrested
on their day off, and suddenly the farm is in
a genuine animal welfare and financial crisis
within hours. So that farm had less than one
work shift of buffer. Less than eight hours.
Eight hours. That's maybe all the buffer you
get before things truly start to unravel. Yeah.
Because you have to maintain that rhythm, that
biological rhythm. What is the specific biological
crisis then? What drives this incredibly narrow
timeline? It's simple, really. It's the immediate,
absolutely non -negotiable need for milking every
12 hours. Period. End of story. Cows are biological
factories. Exactly. Operating on a strict schedule.
If you delay milking significantly past that
12 -hour mark, you immediately start pushing
the internal pressure within the udder. Okay.
That pressure stresses the cow, it stresses the
tissue, and boom, you've created the ideal breeding
ground for bacteria. Mastitis loves that environment.
So push past 18 hours, you're in severe distress
territory. But hit 24 hours without proper milking,
which, you know, is entirely possible if a farm
loses multiple shifts of trained labor all at
once. Then you are facing the potential for a
full scale herd wide mastitis outbreak. It's
almost inevitable at that point. There is that
quote from the Wisconsin producer. Yeah, perfectly
put. Cows don't care about your immigration stance.
They need milking every 12 hours, period. That's
just the hard biological truth of it. And we're
not just talking about a few uncomfortable cows
here, are we? A herd wide mastitis outbreak.
That's a systemic failure. Oh, it can cripple
an operation. For years. The source details the
financial fallout. Treatment costs for a severe
case antibiotics, vet time, that milk withdrawal
period, can actually cost more than replacing
the cow itself. Wait, wait. Treatment costing
more than the cow? That's basically a culling
decision then, not really a financial choice
anymore. It often is. And the production losses
don't just stop that day, right? They compound.
They affect future lactations. So suddenly, some
political decision made hundreds of miles away
forces a producer into making massive, unwanted
culling decisions right there on the farm. That's
brutal. It is. But here's something fascinating,
and the source highlights this so well. The loss
isn't just warm bodies in the parlor. When that
Vermont farm lost those eight workers, they didn't
just lose labor hours. They lost years, maybe
decades of accumulated institutional knowledge.
Like, think about it. They lost the workers who
knew instinctively which cows were prone to kicking,
who were really skilled at handling those vulnerable,
fresh cows gently. who could spot the very early
signs of mastitis, maybe even before it showed
up on a CMT paddle. Right. That deep, specialized
knowledge of individual animals, that's irreplaceable
in the short term. You absolutely cannot just
hire someone off the street and expect them to
handle fresh cow protocols or spot subclinical
mastitis. Exactly. You lose expertise that is...
Utterly critical to animal welfare and, frankly,
your profit margins. So the whole farm, this
living, breathing biological system, becomes
incredibly vulnerable almost instantly. Precisely.
And the implication is clear. This vulnerability
is disproportionately high for those larger -scale
operations managing living systems on these constant
12 -hour schedules, 365 days a year. That Marathon
County producer, quote, really nailed it, didn't
it? It did. Our operation demands constant attention.
Because we're managing living systems, not manufacturing
widgets. You can pause the widget line. You can't
pause gestation or lactation. And that is the
core difference, isn't it? We talk about automation,
efficiency, but dairy is fundamentally different
from a factory. Totally different. If the assembly
line shuts down, okay, you lose a shift's production.
Annoying, but manageable. If a dairy parlor shuts
down for 24 hours, you risk losing your herd's
health and productivity for months, maybe even
years. biology truly doesn't pause for politics
or paperwork. Okay, so moving past that immediate
biological crisis, let's tackle the elephant
in the room. The question that always comes up,
especially from outside the industry, why can't
domestic workers just fill these jobs? Ah, yes,
the just hire Americans argument. We really have
to challenge that assumption head on because
the data, particularly from the North Carolina
Growers Association, paints a really, really
clear picture of the reality on the ground. It's,
well, it's pretty brutal. Yeah, this data needs
to be like, Shout it from the rooftops. Because
it just stops that conversation dead when people
claim American workers just need higher wages
or better benefits. The problem is clearly structural.
It's not purely economic. So let's dive into
that NC data. North Carolina advertised 6 ,500
farm positions, needed jobs, available jobs,
in a state that had, what, nearly half a million
unemployed residents nearby? Yep, 500 ,000 unemployed.
By any conventional economic logic, that should
have resulted in a flood of applicants, right?
You'd think so, but it didn't. They documented
only 268 people even applied. 268 out of half
a million. What is that percentage -wise? Tiny.
Like 0 .05%. That tells you immediately the interest
just isn't there, almost regardless of the pay
being offered. And the retention numbers are
even more staggering. They hired 245 of those
applicants. But only 163 actually showed up for
the first day. Big drop -off already. Huge. And
then... Even worse, by the end of the agricultural
season, how many were left? Seven. Just seven
workers remained. Out of the thousands of unemployed
folks nearby who could have theoretically taken
those jobs, seven. That's an attrition rate of,
what, over 95 %? It's unbelievable. Now contrast
that with the other side. The documented Mexican
workers who started that same season, 90 % of
them completed the entire work contract, verified
in compliance reports. 90 % completion versus?
maybe 3 % or 4 % retention for the domestic hires?
The retention rate is more than 10 times higher
for the foreign workers. That kind of disparity
isn't just random chance. It points to something
fundamental. So what does this mean for the producer
listening right now, you know, the one who keeps
hearing politicians say, just hire locally, translate
this data for them? Okay, well, in plain English
for the farmer listening. Yeah. Here's what the
policy analysts and frankly, people in cities
are not telling the public. It's not just about
the paycheck. Cornell's Ag Workforce Development
Program, they've done a ton of studies on this.
And what did they find? They found compensation
levels were often competitive, you know, compared
to other local unskilled labor jobs. But the
major sticking points are the unique requirements
of dairy work. It's the lifestyle. You mean the
quality of life factors. Exactly. It's that combination.
It's the pre -dawn starts. You can't exactly
sleep in when the cows need milk in at 4 a .m.
It's the intense, physically demanding labor
day in, day out. And the location. Yeah. The
almost inevitable geographic isolation of most
large dairies. They're not usually right next
door to town. And then, let's be blunt, there's
the persistent societal perception of agricultural
work as somehow less desirable. Low status. So
it requires a lifestyle commitment that most
domestic workers, even if they need a job, just
aren't willing to make long term. That seems
to be the core issue. They're not willing to
make that commitment for the long haul. It's
not just the job. It's a 247 -365 reality. But
hang on. Is it really just lifestyle? Or is the
industry maybe still structurally dependent on
paying wages that, OK. might be competitive with
unskilled local labor, but maybe domestic workers
just find insulting for the sheer difficulty
and that 247 commitment required. Is there a
wage component too? It's probably a bit of both,
but the evidence really leans heavily towards
the lifestyle being the primary driver. Because
even when operations do offer genuinely competitive
wages, they still face this retention problem.
Right. Like that anonymous Vermont producer quote.
Yeah, that reinforces the anecdotal reality perfectly.
20 years, two American applicants, over 100 immigrant
applicants. Both Americans were gone within two
weeks. Wow. 20 years, two applicants. The jobs
were there. The pay was presumably adequate for
the local market. But that 24 -7, 365 lifestyle
requirement, that seems to be the absolute unmovable
stumbling block for domestic workforce retention
in dairy. So the data really suggests that without
the immigrant workforce, those jobs simply go
unfilled. Production literally stops. That's
what the numbers point to. It's not a preference.
It's become a structural necessity. And that
structural reality, that necessity, brings us
directly to the money. We need to quantify the
cost of this vulnerability, not just for the
individual farm, but for the entire food system.
Yeah, this is where it gets really serious on
a macro level. Let's transition to those high
-level economic models from the Texas A &M Agricultural
and Food Policy Center. This is where we can
really break down what a labor crisis truly costs
the American food system, right? Right. And this
is the cold, hard math that, frankly, should
be driving every policy discussion around ag
labor. Texas A &M looked at almost 2 ,850 dairy
operations across 14 key states. They modeled
the impact using established supply and demand
elasticity principles. Elasticity meaning how
much demand changes when price changes? Exactly.
And their projections, even in the, let's say,
less extreme scenarios, are frankly terrifying
for the industry and consumers. Okay, let's start
with the extreme scenario they modeled. First,
a complete and sudden loss of immigrant labor.
Maximum fragility scenario. What happens? Their
models project the national herd would immediately
lose 2 .1 million cows. 2 .1 million cows? We
need some perspective on that. What's that equivalent
to? That's like taking the entire dairy cow populations
of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania combined. Yeah.
And just wiping them off the map overnight. Gone.
Okay. And the milk production? The resulting
supply drop is massive and immediate. 48 .4 billion
pounds of annual production lost. That removes
nearly a quarter, 25 % of the current U .S. milk
supply from the market. Just vanishes. And farms.
In that scenario, the study projects the closure
of 7 ,000 farms. permanently. Those operations
simply cannot recover from that kind of inventory
loss and cash flow hit. They're done. So here's
where it hits the consumer and the wider economy.
Based on those elasticity models you mentioned.
Yeah, how consumers react to price. Retail milk
prices would jump 90%. Is that right? 90%. 90%.
Pushing that average $4 gallon up to that staggering
$7 .60 figure we mentioned earlier. I mean, that
$7 .60 number, it just sounds fictional, doesn't
it? But you're saying the model supports it based
on that supply shock. we have to remember the
deep dependency they modeled. When you suddenly
remove 25 % of the supply of a relatively inelastic
product like fluid milk, meaning people still
need to buy it even if the price goes up a bit,
the market response is brutal and quick. That
massive price hike is actually what stabilizes
the market. but at a much lower volume. But what
does $7 .60 really mean in the real world? Would
every grocery store just instantly jack the price
up that high? Or what do we see, like emergency
government intervention, price controls? Well,
you'd likely see immediate short -term chaos
in the market, panic buying maybe, followed by
almost certainly desperate government intervention,
especially around nutritional programs like WIC
and school lunches. But initially, the consumer
gets hit hardest. The government can't just magically
produce milk, right? That price reflects the
true cost of sudden severe scarcity. Okay, that's
the extreme case. What about the less extreme
but maybe more plausible scenario, like losing
half the immigrant workforce maybe through piecemeal
state -by -state enforcement actions? Which feels
like a much more possible near -term reality,
unfortunately. What happens then? We're still
looking at a massive production decrease, about
24 billion pounds less milk annually. And the
price impact? It still translates to roughly
a 45 % price increase for milk at retail. So
suddenly milk is, what, $5 .80 or $6 a gallon?
Still a huge jump. And that 45 % hit, it concentrates
where it hurts the most, right? The National
Milk Producers Federation found something about
this. Yeah, NMPF found that these essential immigrant
workers tend to concentrate in the most productive,
highest efficiency operations. Those mega dairies
we're going to talk more about. So wait. When
the labor disappears, you don't just lose the
output of, say, a small struggling farm. You
lose the concentrated output of the industry's
powerhouses. Exactly. It becomes an efficiency
problem that gets compounded instantly, which
guarantees that the resulting price hike is immediate
and severe for everyone. And the ripple effects
just keep spreading outward. Oh, absolutely.
The USDA research suggests that if milk prices
jumped that high, even the 45 % increase overall
demand would probably drop 15 -20%. Low -income
families, people on fixed incomes, they get hit
the hardest, obviously. And that demand doesn't
just, like, evaporate, right? People still need
calories. No, you'd see massive shifts, probably
not driven by preference but by price, towards
cheaper plant -based alternatives. People switching
to almond or oat milk, not because they suddenly
prefer the taste, but because it's the only thing
they can afford in that price range. And that's
just fluid milk. What about everything else dairy
goes into? Right. Think about cheese prices maybe
doubling. That completely changes the economics
of the pizza industry. Casual dining, frozen
meals, butter at maybe $8 a pound. That fundamentally
changes costs for bakeries, food manufacturers.
School lunch programs. Oh, school lunch programs
would need massive, multi -billion dollar emergency
funding increases from the federal government
just to keep providing basic nutritional requirements.
It's truly a full scale food system shock, and
it's tied directly back to this single point
of failure, our vulnerable farm labor system.
OK, so when we talk about solutions to this really
fundamental labor vulnerability, the conversation
almost always turns to technology, right? Automation,
robotics, the silver bullet argument. And we
have to acknowledge the global milking robot
market is booming. The projections are huge,
jumping from around $2 .3 billion now to maybe
$4 billion, maybe even $7 billion by 2030. That
sounds like the obvious fix, doesn't it? It sounds
like the perfect solution, especially in the
press release or the sales pitch. But here's
the critical reality check we're hearing from
the farmers, the early adopters, actually using
this stuff on the ground. Okay, what's the reality?
University of Wisconsin research, pretty solid
stuff, shows these automated systems do reduce
labor time per cow. Significantly. By about 38
% to 43%. That's not insignificant. That's a
real efficiency gain. Absolutely. It's meaningful.
But, and this is the huge, but it still leaves
over 60 % of the total labor needs on the dairy
completely unaddressed. 60 %? Like what? Like
all the dry cow care. The critical fresh cow
management, getting them started right. The breeding
decisions. The feeding programs and management.
Robots don't do any of that. So robots are fantastic
tools, maybe for the parlor itself, for the milking
process. Yeah, for that specific task. But they
are absolutely not a total labor replacement
solution for the whole farm. And the costs involved
in just making that partial switch, they sound
huge, both in capital and like. Operational know
-how. Oh, completely. That Wisconsin case study
they mentioned really highlights the financial
complexity. The owner of that Appleton operation,
he noted they called tech support daily for the
first month just to keep the system running smoothly.
Daily calls. Wow. And crucially, they didn't
eliminate labor costs. They mostly just shifted
them. They went from paying general parlor workers
maybe $16, $17 an hour to needing highly specialized
technicians, people often requiring degrees or
advanced certifications, at $24 to $26 an hour.
That's a massive jump in the type of labor needed
and the cost per hour, even if the total hours
are reduced somewhat. And the upfront capital
investment. That must raise huge questions about
viability, especially for mid -sized farms. What
kind of numbers are we actually looking at for
installation? Well, current estimates for just
a 200 -cow operation, you're looking at somewhere
between $500 ,000 and... $750 ,000 for a quality
multi -unit system. Half a million to three quarters
of a million bucks. For 200Ks and the payback.
Michigan State Extension crunched the numbers.
Yeah. They estimate the payback period for that
kind of investment is somewhere between seven
and 10 years. And that's assuming stable milk
prices. Assuming stable milk prices. But Sarah,
we just talked about price volatility. Clasamine
milk has been bouncing like crazy between $16
and $20 per hundredweight just this year alone.
Exactly. Assuming stability for a 7 to 10 year
ROI, that's a giant, pretty risky financial leap
of faith for many farms, isn't it? It makes the
transition potentially devastating financially
if something goes wrong. or if milk prices tank
right after you install. Wait, wait, did you
catch that part in the article about the Kansas
retrofitting mistake? This seems like a key example
of how trying to cut corners with this tech can
backfire spectacular. Oh yeah, that was painful
to read. The owner tried to save on the initial
construction costs by adapting an existing older
Thai stall barn layout for their new robotic
system. Bad idea. Why? What happened? It created
terrible cow traffic flow. The layout just wasn't
designed for voluntary movement. Cows were confused
by narrow paths, awkward turns. It just didn't
work. And they realized that mistake was costing
them 10 pounds of milk per cow per day until
they finally bit the bullet and completely redesigned
the barn layout properly. 10 pounds a day per
cow. If you have, say, 150 cows, that's 1 ,500
pounds of milk just gone every single day. The
source calculated that mistake cost the operation
something like $150 ,000 in lost revenue. They'll
never get back. just during the period before
the redesign was finished. It shows the immense
risk and the precision needed. You can't just
bolt these things in anywhere. No kidding. And
we have to be realistic about the limitations
of the robots themselves, too. There are critical
tasks they just cannot do, things that require
actual judgment. Right. They still can't manage
that, what, 10 to 20 percent of cows that simply
never figure out voluntary traffic flow, those
fetch cows. They still need to be brought into
the robot manually, twice a day, every day. So
you still need labor for that. Yep. They also
can't handle the careful, patient, fresh cow
training needed to get heifers adapted. They
can't make critical breeding decisions based
on visual cues or health records. And they certainly
can't manage complex treatment protocols that
require genuine on -farm judgment from an experienced
human herds person. Let's focus on that 10 -20
% of non -adapting cows for a sec. What does
a farmer actually do with those animals on a
robotic farm? That's still a huge drain on labor
time, isn't it? Fetching 20 % of your herd twice
a day. It is a massive drain. You basically have
two choices. Neither is great. Either you dedicate
that highly paid labor, that $24 an hour tech
to fetching and sometimes forcing those cows
into the robot every single shift. Which kills
your labor savings. Exactly. Or the other option
is you simply call those otherwise healthy cows
earlier than you normally would just because
they don't fit the system. Both choices reduce
your overall efficiency and definitely raise
your hidden costs. And remember, the entire heifer
raising program, the dry cow management, that
all remains completely manual anyway. Completely
manual. So bottom line, automation helps with
milking efficiency, yes. But it is absolutely
not solving the fundamental labor dependency
problem completely. Not by a long shot. Okay,
so this inherent labor vulnerability, combined
with the really high capital cost of adopting
new technology like robots, it feels like it's
just pouring gasoline on a fire we've been watching
for years. Consolidation? Yeah, it's accelerating
it, no question. The USDA census data they cited,
comparing 2017 to 2022, it's absolutely brutal.
We lost, what, nearly 16 ,000 dairy farms? 15
,866 farms gone. In just five years. Yet national
milk production actually increased by 5 % during
that same period. That is just the definition
of ruthless efficiency at work, isn't it? The
math is just unforgiving, and it really dictates
the future shape of the industry. Look at the
breakdown by size. Farms under 100 cows, down
42%. Operations with 100 to 499 cows, they dropped
34%. Significant losses in the middle, too. Meanwhile,
the mega -dairies, those defined as over 2 ,500
cows, their numbers are up 17%. Up 17%. And what
does this mean in terms of actual milk production?
It means that the 834 largest dairy operations
in the country now generate 46%, almost half
of all U .S. milk production. Less than 1 ,000
farms producing nearly half the milk. And the
reason for this relentless consolidation, it's
structural, isn't it? And probably insurmountable
for many smaller operations. USDA research confirmed
that cost gap. Yeah, the production cost difference.
Smaller operations, on average, incur production
costs roughly $10 per hundredweight higher than
their larger competitors. $10 a hundredweight.
Walk us through why that cost gap is so consistently
huge. What drives it? Well, it's a combination
of factors. Infrastructure costs spread over
more units. Specialization of labor, a mega dairy
can afford full -time nutritionists, specialized
vets, dedicated hoof trimmers, and amortize that
cost across thousands of cows. Economies of scale
in purchasing. Immense purchasing power for feed,
fuel, supplies, everything. They can invest millions
in advanced waste management systems or robotics
and actually achieve a faster, more stable return
on investment than a smaller farm that's just
struggling to meet payroll and basic compliance.
So when margins get thin, like they often do
in dairy. That $10 centred at cost difference
is the absolute death knell for smaller operations
trying to compete on the commodity market. There's
just no way to bridge that gap long term. And
what's really fascinating, or maybe sobering,
is that this trend isn't unique to the U .S.,
right? It's not just our specific regulations
or market structure causing this. No, the source
points out clear global parallels. Look at Canada's
supply management system. Completely different
structure. Yet their average herd size grew from
85 to 98 cows in that same five -year period.
Still consolidating. In the Netherlands? The
Netherlands, with totally different regulations,
intense land constraints. They lost 30 % of their
dairy farms in just a decade. So that suggests
this pressure for operational efficiency, for
scale. It's just an unstoppable global force,
regardless of the political system or market
rules. It really seems that way. If you're not
constantly growing and improving efficiency,
you're essentially being slowly, inexorably squeezed
out of the commodity market. Okay, so... Based
on all this analysis, the article lays out three
potential future trajectories for the industry,
and labor seems to be the key variable swinging
between them. Absolutely. Labor stability, or
lack thereof, is the pivot point. Scenario one.
The most probable. What's that look like? That's
basically more of the same. Continued consolidation.
maybe dropping us down to somewhere between 15
,000 to 18 ,000 total operations nationally.
Milk prices would likely remain relatively stable
globally, but you'd see continued hollowing out
of rural communities, fewer local suppliers,
fewer buyers for used equipment. The landscape
changes. Okay. Scenario two. The growing possibility.
This one sounds different. This one involves
accelerated foreign investment. We're talking
large Canadian processors, European food conglomerates,
maybe even aggressive private equity firms, seeing
an opportunity in distressed U .S. dairy assets.
So what happens then? In this future, American
dairy farming potentially becomes more like American
dairy management. The original farm owners or
families might transition into high -level employees
managing a portfolio of large, efficient facilities
owned by these outside entities. a fundamental
shift in ownership structure. Right. And then
there's the third one, the high impact outlier,
the wildcard scenario. This is the one that hinges
entirely on that labor crisis actually happening.
This is what happens if there's coordinated,
widespread federal immigration enforcement hitting
dairy areas hard. It triggers the actual supply
disruption we modeled earlier with Texas A &M.
That's the $7 to $8 milk world. That's the world
where milk hits $7 to $8 a gallon, cheese and
butter prices double or triple, grocery shelves
have gaps, and the recovery requires maybe 5
to 10 years of fundamental industry restructuring.
Because you can't just instantly replace milk.
Millions of lost cows and thousands of closed
operations overnight. It takes years to rebuild
that capacity. OK, let's pivot now to the political
side of this or maybe the lack of a political
solution, because the legislative reaction to
this pretty clear biological and economic fragility,
it seems incredibly dysfunctional, doesn't it?
Dysfunctional is. Probably putting it mildly.
Yeah. We have these legislative proposals floating
around, like the Farm Workforce Modernization
Act, FWMA, and the Agricultural Reform Act. But
looking closely, they don't actually seem to
solve the core labor dependency problem for dairy,
do they? No, not even close. Let's just look
at the basic math problem with FWMA, for example.
It proposes 20 ,000 year -round agricultural
visas annually, total, across all of ag. Dairy
might get what, maybe 10 ,000 of those slots,
optimistically? Okay, 10 ,000 visas. But we established
earlier the industry currently employs approximately
77 ,000 immigrant workers, right? Most of whom
are undocumented, but already highly trained
and essential. Exactly. So 10 ,000 new visas
only addresses roughly 13 % of the existing need.
13%. That's barely a drop in the bucket for stabilizing
the current system, let alone allowing for any
future growth or flexibility. And the requirements
in FWMA for the current workers to gain legal
status, they seem really lengthy and impractical.
Oh, they are. Current experienced workers would
need, what is it, 10 years of documented agricultural
work history before they even become eligible
for permanent residency. A decade? That timeline
is just absurdly long. It offers basically no
immediate incentive or stability for the existing
critical workforce that's keeping farms running
today. Then you've got the other proposal, Representative
Van Orden's Agricultural Reform Act. That one
sounds riddled with eligibility problems, too.
Yeah, it's got major hurdles. Current workers
would supposedly need to leave the country and
then return legally, paying a minimum fee of
$2 ,500 per person. And get this, anyone who
entered the U .S. during the current presidential
administration wouldn't qualify at all. just
arbitrarily excluded so you're creating layers
upon layers of bureaucratic hurdles financial
barriers it just sounds fundamentally unworkable
for the actual existing labor force you're trying
to stabilize It's completely unworkable. And
the reality is both of these proposals are basically
stuck in committee anyway, as of late 2025 when
this analysis was done, which means dairy still
remains excluded from any kind of functional
year -round access comparable to the H -2A program
other ag sectors use, forcing continued reliance
on the vulnerable undocumented system. Which
raises a really important contrarian point the
article makes. Why is the U .S. system so uniquely
dysfunctional on this when our neighbor to the
north seems to have figured it out? We should
be using Canada's temporary foreign worker program,
TFWP, as the functional comparison, shouldn't
we? Absolutely. Canada's TFWP program has been
successfully running, adapting, but running for
over 50 years. They allow over 60 ,000 TFWs annually
across various sectors, including agriculture.
Crucially, they have streams that allow for year
-round access, and the work permit durations
can go up to 24 months, sometimes longer. So
that stability allows Canadian producers to actually
plan to retain trained staff. Exactly. It insulates
them to a large degree from the kind of sudden
political enforcement shocks that U .S. dairy
farmers live in constant fear of. The U .S. system's
complete failure to create a viable, predictable,
year -round program specifically for dairy's
needs really feels like an intentional, self
-inflicted wound at this point. And the human
element of all this legislative uncertainty,
it circles right back to the farm stability,
doesn't it? The source mentioned that detail
about workers in Vermont delaying crucial prenatal
care for months because they were afraid of enforcement
actions. Yeah, that single detail. Delaying critical
health care for an unborn child. It just shows
how the human cost spirals back and directly
hits the operation's stability and productivity.
It's impossible to run a stable, efficient farm
if your key staff are operating in perpetual
fear and potentially compromising their health.
But it's not all doom and gloom. We are seeing
some really interesting regional adaptations,
aren't we? Examples that offer genuine paths
forward, proving some farms are tackling this
proactively. Definitely. Look at Central New
York. Producers there working closely with Cornell
Cooperative Extension, they've developed some
really innovative, sophisticated training programs
for domestic workers. And they're backing it
up with real commitment. Yeah, they're offering
competitive salaries, the article mentioned,
figures around $65 ,000 annually, plus benefits
tied to five -year contracts. And apparently
they're successfully retaining these domestic
workers well beyond that typical two -year churn
we see elsewhere. It can be done, but it requires
serious investment and a different management
approach. That's a huge commitment, $65 ,000
plus benefits and a five -year deal. But maybe
that's what it takes, an investment in stability.
It might be. And we're seeing other structural
changes trying to address that lifestyle challenge
we talked about. Some Wisconsin cooperatives
are apparently exploring rotating labor pools
between member farms. How would that work? The
idea is to allow workers to have scheduled weekends
off, maybe rotating holidays. That's a key requirement
for retaining domestic workers long term. The
coordination is obviously complex, but the operations
experimenting with it report massive gains in
workforce stability and morale. Interesting.
And maybe the easiest change, the one with the
highest immediate ROI, housing. Absolutely. This
comes up again and again. It's almost industry
best practice now. Operations that invest in
providing actual quality housing, think decent
apartments, maybe small houses, separate from
the farm itself, not just crowded communal dormitories.
They're seeing turnover rates drop dramatically,
often from like... 45 % annually, down to maybe
15%. Treat your workers with dignity, provide
decent living conditions regardless of their
origin. And it generates measurable financial
and operational returns. Fewer mistakes, better
animal care, lower training costs. It just makes
business sense. We're also seeing that strategic
relocation trend, right? Producers voting with
their feet. Yep. The source notes California
producers facing increasingly prohibitive state
regulations and costs are literally... picking
up and relocating entire operations to states
with more favorable regulatory environments,
like Texas or South Dakota. Strategic location
is becoming just as critical as feed costs or
genetics when you're calculating long -term viability.
You have to factor in the political and regulatory
risk now. Hashtag tag three, actionable insights
segment. All right, expert speaker, let's bring
this home. Farmers just finished morning milking.
Maybe they're driving to the feed store right
now, listening to this, thinking about this incredibly
volatile reality we've just laid out. What are
the three most actionable things they absolutely
need to take away from this deep dive? OK, three
key things. First, immediate action. Something
you need to look at like this week. Assess your
labor vulnerability and compliance. Seriously.
What does that mean practically? For farms of
all scales, you absolutely must prioritize professional
HR infrastructure, get documented hiring protocols
in place, have robust compliance programs, maybe
even get an external audit. If you're operating
over, say, 2 ,500 cows, you need to be actively
diversifying your labor strategies right now,
maybe exploring those cooperative pool models
we mentioned, looking at different visa options
if possible. The system is just too fragile for
complacency. Know your weak points. Okay, that's
immediate. What about medium term strategy and
thinking ahead like the next three to six months?
Medium term, it really feels like decision time
and it's largely based on your current scale.
Determine your exit or expansion strategy based
on scale. Break that down. If you're currently
running an operation under 500 cows, you need
to be seriously exploring niche markets right
now. Things like certified organic, 100 % grass
-fed, maybe specialized genetics like A2A2. That
can command significant premiums. We're talking
$3 to $10 per hundredweight, maybe more, just
to overcome that structural $10 to $20 cost gap
compared to the big guys. Relying solely on commodity
prices at that scale. The math suggests it's
just no longer viable long -term. Okay, that's
sub -500. What about the middle group? If you're
in that 500 to 1500 cow range, you are caught
squarely in that consolidation squeeze. You need
a defined plan, and soon. You either need to
be actively planning for significant expansion,
getting up over that 2 ,500 cal threshold, which
means securing millions in capital, planning
infrastructure, or you need to be strategically
seeking partnerships, maybe merging with neighbors,
or looking at contract production relationships
with larger entities. The data is absolutely
clear. Just standing still in that middle -sized
category, hoping things get better. That's not
a viable long -term strategy in this volatile
market. You have to choose a direction. Okay,
immediate assessment, medium -term strategic
decision. What about long -term positioning,
thinking one to two years out? Long -term, it
comes down to two key investments. Invest in
your workers and your strategic location. We
talked about workers. You absolutely must invest
in quality worker housing if you haven't already.
It's probably the single best investment you
can make to reduce that crippling high turnover.
It pays for itself tenfold in reduced training
costs, fewer mistakes, and improved herd health
and stability. Treat people well. And location.
And if you are considering building a new facility
or doing a major renovation, you have to carefully
assess your state -level regulatory trajectory
and the political stability around ag labor in
that state. Look hard at why those California
producers are moving to Texas and South Dakota,
and critically, learn from that Kansas example.
Do not repeat that retrofitting mistake. Invest
properly up front in things like good barn design
and cow traffic flow to avoid those catastrophic
milk losses later. Location and smart infrastructure
are key for the long haul. Hashtag Tad Shambaveh.
Enhanced show outro. Well, this has been another
pretty essential deep dive from the Bullvine
podcast, I think. If this kind of operational
and economic analysis helps your operation really
understand labor, the biological and the economic
realities you're facing, well, head over to www
.thebullvine .com. There are more detailed articles
there that really tell you what's actually happening
in dairy beyond the headlines. And seriously,
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We
are absolutely dedicated to tracking these kinds
of existential threats and opportunities for
the industry. You know, remember that American
demand for dairy products products, it remains
incredibly strong, something like 650 pounds
per person annually. But if that labor crisis
really hits and milk prices fundamentally change
that consumer base, pushing fluid milk up towards
that seven or eight dollars per gallon mark,
well, dairy risks becoming a luxury item for
many, and that could accelerate a forced shift
to alternatives unlike anything we've seen. Somebody
somewhere is going to produce that milk globally.
The real question for you listening is, which
operations here will survive, adapt, and be positioned
to provide it? We'll keep tracking those stalled
legislative efforts and the regional adaptations
we discussed today. Thanks for tuning in.