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,
the home for real stories from the people shaping
the dairy industry. I'm Sarah, and I'm really
glad you're here with us. And I'm Jake. Yeah,
it's good to be back. You know, usually when
we start a deep dive... We're ready to get into
the weeds on the technical stuff. Oh, absolutely.
Spend so much time talking about milk price volatility
or breaking down the latest genomic proofs or
debating the pros and cons of robotic milking
versus rotaries. Right. We focus on the inputs
and the outputs, the mechanics of the industry.
Yeah. The spreadsheets. The spreadsheets. Exactly.
But today. Today is going to be different. Today
isn't about milk prices or genetics. We have
a story here that, quite frankly, it stopped
us in our tracks. It really did. It's a story
about community, about sudden loss, and about
what happens when the machinery of a farm keeps
running, but the people just vanish. And I think
for anyone listening, it doesn't matter if you're
milking 50 cows or 5 ,000, this conversation
is going to hit on a fear that... every single
producer has tucked away in the back of their
mind. We spend all this time planning for risks,
you know, weather, markets, disease protocols.
But this, this is a different kind of risk. It
really is. It's the human risk. This is the kind
of conversation that reminds you why you got
into dairy in the first place. And it's not for
the easy days. Anyone can look good when the
sun is shining and the corn is chopping well
and the tank is full. It is about how we show
up. How we show up on the hard ones. That's so
well said. And just to give everyone the context,
this story takes place in Lovington, New Mexico.
But, and this is so crucial, as we go through
this, I want you to realize this could be any
road in Wisconsin. It could be a valley in Vermont.
It could be a concession road in Ontario. The
zip code doesn't matter. Not at all. The coordinates
don't matter as much as the reality of what happens
inside that barn. So let's unpack this. I want
to take you to a very specific moment. June 4th.
2025. Outlook Dairy in Lovington, New Mexico.
June 4th. A Tuesday. A Tuesday. And you have
to picture the scene. The sources describe it
as just a normal Tuesday. The morning started
hot and dry, which is pretty typical for that
part of the country. And if you closed your eyes
and just stood in the parlor at, say, 8 a .m.,
you'd hear all those sounds of a dairy humming.
The rhythm. Yes, the rhythm. The hoses hissing,
the units clanking, the vacuum pumps running.
It's a constant. It's a rhythm. You know that
sound. It tells you everything's okay. It does.
And over the top of it, that mix of Spanish and
English chatter, it's the sound of a team working
together. It's really the sound of productivity.
It's the heartbeat of the operation. I mean,
you know things are going well just by the pitch
of that noise. If it's rhythmic, if it's steady,
you're making milk. You're making milk. It's
a machine made of people. But then... In a heartbeat.
In just a moment, everything shifts. The crisis
point. Homeland Security investigations, HSI
trucks come down the lane. And this wasn't like
a small check -in. This wasn't a paperwork audit.
No. By the end of the day, 11 workers are in
custody. But here is the kicker. And this is
where the numbers. They just get scary. An employment
audit that was tied to the raid forces the owner,
Isaac Bowles, to fire 24 more people. On the
spot. OK, let's just let's just pause on that
for a second. We really need to feel the weight
of those numbers because it's so easy to just
hear 11 arrested and kind of move on. Break it
down for us. What does that actually look like
on the ground? We are talking about a workforce
of 55 people. That's the total crew. The whole
operation. The whole thing. Milkers, pushers,
feeders, calf managers, you name it. In the span
of a few hours, I mean, before the sun even goes
down, 35 of them are gone. 30 -guy. That is nearly
two -thirds of the entire workforce. 64%. 64%.
Wow. Imagine running any business. I don't care
if it's a factory, a restaurant, a trauma center,
and you lose 64 % of your staff before the shift
change. Can't function. You don't just slow down.
You crash. You stop. It's catastrophic. And the
quote from Isaac Bowles in the source material
is, it's just chilling. He said, milk production
didn't just slow down. It effectively ceased.
Ceased. You never, ever want to hear that word
associated with a dairy. A dairy is a continuous
flow biological system. Ceased implies a stoppage
that, you know, biology doesn't allow for. And
that just sets up this massive curiosity gap
for us. Oh, yeah. How do you milk thousands of
cows when 64 percent of your team disappears
before sunset? Who is less standing in the barn?
And maybe even bigger, what happens to a town
when 35 families are suddenly completely in crisis?
Because the cows don't know the workers are gone.
The biology is just, it's relentless. It doesn't
care about federal agencies. Before we get into
the scramble to survive, you know, how I think
we really need to understand what was lost. We
need the origin story, so to speak, because this
wasn't just some faceless industrial site. No,
and that's a critical point the sources make.
This was a community. It wasn't just a workplace.
So let's talk about the before. Who were these
35 people? Well, you know, there's a misconception
sometimes, especially outside our industry, that
farm labor is transient. Right, that they're
just passing through. That it's people passing
through, drifting from state to state, working
a season and moving on. But these workers at
Outlook Dairy, that wasn't the case at all. They
had put down roots. They were neighbors. Exactly.
I mean, their kids were in the local schools.
They were shopping at the local grocery stores.
They were part of the actual fabric of Lovington.
They weren't strangers living in the shadows.
They were the people you stood next to in line
at the gas station or saw at the Little League
game. The sources mentioned that local advocates
pointed this out. They said they contributed
to our economy and enriched our culture. These
were co -workers. They were friends. And if you
connect that to the listener's experience. Just,
you know, think about your own crew. Think about
those key people who have been with you for 5,
10, maybe 15 years. The ones you trust implicitly.
Yeah. The ones you don't even have to talk to,
you just give them a look. Right. The guy who
manages the maternity pen, he knows the cows
better than the owner does half the time. Oh,
for sure. He knows which cow is feeling off just
by the way she walks into the parlor. He knows
that cow 4E052 kicks with her left leg if you
don't talk to her first. That kind of institutional
knowledge. Yeah. It's invaluable. You can't buy
it. It's not just labor. That's the key thing.
It's skill. It's intuition. You can't just replace
that with a warm body. That knowledge lives in
their heads. And when you have that level of
integration where the guy milking your cows is
also the guy you see at the football game on
Friday night, you get this illusion of stability.
What do you mean by that? An illusion of stability?
You just get the feeling that it won't happen
here. You know, the coffee shop talk is familiar.
Everyone knows everyone. And you just assume
the system will keep holding together because,
well, because it has to. Right. It's always worked
before. It's always worked. We all know the immigration
system is broken. We know the labor situation
is fragile. But day to day, you just assume the
sun will come up and the crew will show up. It's
the normalization of a very fragile system. Precisely.
You build your whole life around it. You build
your business on it until the trucks pull in.
Let's go right to that turning point. The raid
itself. The day everything changed. The emotional
shock described in the sources is just so intense.
Isaac Bell's the owner. He emphasized that the
dairy itself wasn't charged, but that the employees
had false documents. Put yourself in that moment.
I can't even. You're a farmer. The audit happens.
You have 11 people arrested, literally taken
away in vans. And then you're told you have to
fire 24 more. Immediately. Think about the impossible
position that puts a business owner in. First,
the human side of it. Firing people you've worked
with for years. People you care about. Yeah.
But then let's just talk about the biological
reality. The cows. The cows. They don't stop
making milk just because the labor is gone. It's
not like turning off a machine on a factory line
and say, OK, we'll start it up tomorrow. No.
Their udders are filling up every single hour.
The pressure is building. They need feed pushed
up. They need water drops cleaned. They need
sand beds raked. The whole system is alive. It's
just the impossible math, isn't it? 55 people
were doing that work, and now fewer than 20 remain.
It is physically impossible to do the same job.
Isaac Boss said, and this quote sticks with me,
it takes 100 % of the labor force. It's detrimental
for our cattle. We're barely able to keep going.
Detrimental for our cattle. I mean, that is a
gut punch for any producer to have to admit.
It breaks your heart because as farmers, animal
welfare is the absolute priority. You know, it's
deeper than just being late for milking. Tell
me more about that. What happens biologically
in that situation? Okay, so we have to talk about
the neurohormonal loop. This is critical. Milk
letdown isn't just a mechanical process. It's
hormonal. It relies on a hormone called oxytocin.
And oxytocin relies on a calm, consistent, predictable
environment. Cows are creatures of extreme habit.
They know the sounds of specific workers. They
know the routine. They know the timing. So when
the entire routine shatters. When the parlor
goes silent. Or, you know what, even worse, when
it's filled with the sounds of chaos and panic
and strange voices, the cows get stressed. Their
cortisol levels, the stress hormone, they spike.
And cortisol directly blocks oxytocin. So even
if you manage to get a unit on a cow, she might
not let her milk down. She holds it up. She holds
up. And now you've got a huge problem. You have
residual milk left in the other. That is a perfect
breeding ground for bacteria. So your SEC count
just skyrockets. Your somatic cell count goes
through the roof. You're inviting mastitis into
the herd. The machine doesn't just stop. It starts
to... self -destruct biologically that is the
absolute nightmare isaac boss was looking at
it wasn't just we are late it was we are actively
damaging the herd maybe permanently can you just
i mean can you imagine the sound in that barn
as the afternoon wears on it wouldn't be silent
that's the thing people might not realize it
would be deafeningly loud Really? You'd have
thousands of cows bellowing because they're full
of milk, they're uncomfortable, and they're completely
off schedule. It's a sound of distress. It's
a sound that makes the hair on the back of your
neck stand up. And the sun is going down. And
you have 20 people left to do the work of 55.
So how did they possibly get through it? Let's
talk about the journey through. Because they
didn't just walk away. They couldn't. No, you
can't. This is where the story gets incredibly
real. And frankly... It gets gritty. This isn't
the, you know, the Disney version of farming
where everyone pulls together with a song. This
is the all hands on deck, brutal reality. What
did that actually look like day to day? Well,
it wasn't pretty. It wasn't a cavalry of trained
professional relief milkers riding in to save
the day. It was literally whoever was left. The
sources mention the office staff. Yeah. I mean,
can you picture that? The people who usually
handle the phones, the payroll, the compliance
paperwork. Suddenly they're taking off their
office shoes and pulling on a pair of muck boots
that might not even fit. People who maybe haven't
been in a pit in years or maybe ever. Or ever.
And you had high school students. High school
students on summer break. Local high school kids.
Instead of hanging out at the pool or playing
video games, they are in a milking parlor in
the middle of a crisis. You mentioned earlier
that we shouldn't romanticize this moment. We
absolutely cannot. A modern milking parlor is
an industrial site. It is loud. It is wet. It
is slippery. You have heavy steel gates swinging
around. And huge animals. And you have 1500 pound
animals that are already stressed out and unpredictable
because their entire routine has been broken.
And you put a 16 year old who maybe has never
been in a pit before into that environment. You
do. Because you have no other choice. But think
about the danger. Think about the physical fatigue.
These kids, the office staff, they aren't just
working a nice little four -hour shift. They
are grinding. They are running on pure adrenaline.
And that kind of exhaustion, it just inevitably
leads to mistakes. It has to. It's human nature.
When you are running on adrenaline and no sleep
for days on end, your reaction time slows down.
Your judgment gets cloudy. That's when accidents
happen. That's when you get kicked. That's when
a gate smashes a finger. And that's when the
animal care, despite your best intentions, starts
to slip. The sources were very honest about that
part of it. And I really appreciate that honesty,
because if you try to paint a picture where everything
was perfect and no balls were dropped, nobody
in the industry believes you for a second. When
you are that tired, you miss things. A cow with
a full quarter, maybe she has mastitis starting,
she gets missed. A calf that looks a little dull
-eyed in the hutch doesn't get flagged because
you're rushing to get formula into the next one.
It's not negligence, it's... It's triage. It's
triage. That's the perfect word. You stop worrying
about production targets. You stop looking at
the nuances of feed efficiency or breeding protocols.
The entire goal shifts to primal survival. It's
just keep the animals alive. It sounds like a
war zone mentality. It is survival mode, pure
and simple. Just keep the milk flowing enough
to relieve the pressure on the cows. Dump it
on the ground if you have to, but get it out
of the cow. That's goal number one. And this
just connects to every farmer's nightmare. You
know, if you've ever had the flu run through
your family during calving season. Yeah. Or a
key employee quits without notice. You know that
panic. You know that feeling in the pit of your
stomach. Now just take that feeling and multiply
it by 35. It's just. It's overwhelming. But there
was another pressure building at the same time,
wasn't there? This atmosphere of fear. Voss called
it the intimidating effect. And it didn't just
affect Outlaw Dairy. It rippled through the entire
community. We see this in stories from Vermont
and New York and Wisconsin, too. It's a known
phenomenon. When a raid like this happens, the
immigrant community shrinks. They go underground.
What does that actually look like in practice
outside the barn? It looks like a ghost town.
It looks like empty pews at church on Sunday
because people are afraid to drive down the main
road. It looks like the waiting room at the local
clinic is empty because people are skipping doctor
appointments for themselves or their kids. Because
just leaving the perceived safety of the farm
feels like a massive risk. The fear that leaving
the farm means ending up in a patrol car. I mean,
think about the parents not going to their kid's
school play or a parent -teacher conference because
they're terrified of being seen. The emotional
resonance of that is. It's just profound. You
have children who are. Unsure where their parents
are, you have families who are afraid to ask
for help because asking for help means being
seen and being seen is dangerous. It creates
this invisible crisis that's running parallel
to the very visible one in the barn. So you have
the cows billowing on one side and this terrified
silence in the homes on the other. Both happening
at once. And the farm owner, Isaac Boss, is somehow
trying to navigate both of those things at the
same time. But then... Something shifted. There
was a breakthrough. And this is the part of the
story that, I don't know, it just gets me. This
is the part that separates the story from just
being another tragedy. It wasn't a policy change
that saved them. It wasn't some government rescue
program. No, the cavalry wasn't federal agents
coming back to help. It was the neighbors. When
neighbors became family. That's really what happened.
Talk about that neighbor moment. How does that
actually work? Because. I mean, your neighbors,
they have their own cows to milk. They have their
own farms to run. That's the thing. It's not
like they were sitting around with nothing to
do waiting for a crisis. It started with text
messages. You know how news travels in farm country?
Oh, yeah. It travels faster than fiber optics.
Before sunrise the next day, the phones are blowing
up. Did you hear? How bad is it? What do you
need? And then they didn't just ask. They showed
up. They showed up. But you have to think about
the logistics of that help. It's incredible.
You have a neighbor who runs a dairy five miles
down the road. He has to milk his own cows first.
Of course. So he gets up an hour early. He pushes
his own crew, who are probably also scared, by
the way. He finishes his own chores. And then
he drives over to Outlook Dairy to start a second
shift for free. That is just, it's exhaustion
on top of exhaustion. It is. You had nutritionists
and vets swinging by early in the morning, not
to consult, but to put on boots and scrape alleys.
These are highly paid professionals doing manual
labor because it needed to be done. And the teens
you mentioned earlier. The local kids choosing
to work in the middle of a crisis rather than
scroll on their phones. I mean, that tells you
something powerful about the character of that
place. And it wasn't just labor, was it? The
help came in other forms, too. These little acts
of kindness. The stuff that actually keeps you
going mentally when you want to quit. Plates
of food left at back doors. You know, the classic,
we made too much excuse so nobody has to feel
like a charity case. Oh, I just happened to bake
three lasagnas today. Exactly. Here, take this.
I don't want it to go to waste. It's a way of
helping that preserves dignity. You had people
giving rides into town for families who were
too scared to drive themselves. You had envelopes
of cash being passed quietly at church for the
families who instantly lost all of their income.
It was the community's way of saying, we see
you, you're not alone. Exactly. And then you
had the town hall meeting in Hobbs, New Mexico.
Right. And this wasn't just a small gathering.
The governor, Michelle Illusion Grisham, was
there. Church leaders, school staff, this wasn't
just an ag meeting. This was the whole community
coming together. And the questions they were
asking weren't about economics, were they? No.
And that is so key. They weren't asking about
tariffs or milk futures or the price of feed.
They were asking human questions. They were asking,
what happens to the kids? What happens to the
grocery store if these families leave? It's the
realization that the dairy isn't an island. It's
connected to everything. The community realized
they weren't just a collection of businesses
coexisting next to each other. They were a single
lifeline for one another. If the dairy falls,
the grocery store hurts. If the workers vanish,
the schools feel it. If the families leave, the
church closes. That is such a powerful pivot
to go from their problem to our problem. Our
problem. That is the only way a community survives
something like this. So let's zoom out for a
minute. We've looked at the micro at what happened
at Outlook Dairy. We've looked at the fear and
the incredible community response. But we need
to talk about the ripple effect. Because this
goes so far beyond one farm in New Mexico. We
have to. We have to connect this to the bigger
picture, because if you're listening to this
in Idaho or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, you need
to understand what this means for you. So what
is the industry -wide reality here? The data
is stark. It's really not up for debate. 51 %
of all U .S. dairy labor is immigrant labor.
Over half the workforce. Over half. And here's
the even more critical number. 79 % of the country's
milk comes from these farms that employ immigrant
labor. Nearly 80 % of the entire milk supply
relies on this workforce. Yes. The NMPF, that's
the National Milk Producers Federation, they've
done the modeling on this. They've run the numbers.
They predict that losing this labor force would
close. 7 ,000 dairy farms. 7 ,000 farms. And
it would double retail milk prices for consumers.
Double the price of milk. I mean, that hits every
single consumer in the country. That changes
the grocery bill for every single family. We've
all seen the models, you know, milk prices jumping
to $6 or $8 a gallon. That's the macroeconomic
data. But I want to drill down even deeper. For
the guy or gal listening in the tractor cab right
now, there's a stat that matters even more than
the price of milk. OK, what is that? It's the
replacement lag. Replacement lag. Explain that.
If you lose your experienced crew today, you
don't just lose labor hours. That's not the real
loss. You lose that institutional memory we talked
about earlier. It takes what? Three months to
fully train a new milker to consistently spot
subclinical mastitis before it flares up. Six
months for a new feeder to really learn the quirks
of your mixer wagon so he doesn't waste thousands
of dollars in feed. So even if you somehow hired
35 people the very next morning. Even if you
had 35 eager, qualified people standing there
at sunrise, which let's be clear, you absolutely
won't. You are still broken. Your farm is broken
for at least a year. That's the nuance that the
double milk price headline always misses. It's
the efficiency dry. It's the efficiency dry.
You bleed out slowly from the loss of skill.
Because the new guy doesn't know that Cal Forte
for two kicks with her left leg. Exactly. So
she kicks off the unit. She doesn't get milked
out properly. She gets mastitis. You treat her.
You lose the milk. Maybe you lose the quarter.
Maybe you lose the cow. That is the ripple effect
in action. It's the thousands of these tiny microefficiencies
that vanish instantly. And there's a human ripple
effect to just knowing this is possible, isn't
there? The mental load on other farmers. Oh,
the 3 .0 a .m. stare at the ceiling. The worry.
The worry. If you are a farmer in Wisconsin or
New York and you're watching this news, you're
thinking, am I next? It adds a layer of anxiety
to an already stressful job. And you have to
think about the spouse. And let's be honest,
it's often the wife on the farm who's balancing
the payroll, who's managing crisis communications,
who's carrying the emotional weight of a terrified
crew. It is a heavy, heavy burden. I've seen
it a hundred times. The spouse is often the shock
absorber for the entire operation. They absorb
the fear from the employees, the stress from
their husband, the questions from the community.
It burns people out. It's a universal truth,
isn't it? This isn't a New Mexico problem. It's
a vulnerability baked into the system everywhere.
The Bullvines' own reporting on this called it
a stark preview. And that's exactly what it is.
It's a trailer for a movie that nobody wants
to see. OK, so what does this all mean for the
listener? We've walked through the crisis, the
survival, the community response. But if I'm
sitting in my tractor cab right now listening
to all this, what do I do with it? It could feel
a little helpless. Right. You might be thinking,
that's terrible, but I'm in Wisconsin, so what
can I actually do? Exactly. So let's make this
practical. I want to pose a challenge, a kind
of thought experiment for everyone listening.
I call it the who would you call challenge. Go
on. It comes down to insight and preparation.
The big lesson here is don't wait for the crisis
to build the relationship. So I want you to ask
yourself two questions today, right now. So question
one. If half my crew vanished tomorrow, Just
like that, poof, gone. Who are the first three
people I would call? The first three. And you
don't mean your lawyer or your banker? No, not
your lawyer. Who would I call to help me physically
milk the cows? Who would I call to help me feed
the calves? Do I even have three names? That's
a really scary question for a lot of people to
answer, honestly. It exposes your isolation.
If you can't name three people, you have some
work to do, you have relationship building to
do. And question two. Whose call would I answer
if it happened to them? That's the mirror image
of the first question, isn't it? That's the mirror.
If your neighbor called you at four o 'clock
in the morning and said, they're all gone, I
can't milk, would you go? Would you get out of
bed and pull on your boots and drive over there?
That's profound. It moves it from being a policy
problem to a personal responsibility. And here's
some actionable advice to go with it. Tell your
key people, your family, your long -term staff,
Tell them today that they matter. Don't assume
they know it. Build the safety net before you
need it. Build the safety net before the storm
hits. Go tell your neighbor, hey, if you ever
get in a jam, I'm here. I'm a phone call away.
Make that verbal contract. Because when the HSI
trucks show up or the tornado hits or the barn
burns down, that verbal contract is the only
insurance that actually pays out immediately.
And what about on the policy side of things?
When you talk to your representatives, and we
all should be, don't just talk economics. It's
easy to fall back on that. Don't just talk about
milk price margins or class three pricing. Tell
them the human story. Tell them this story. Tell
them, here is who milks my cows. Here are their
names. Here is what happens to my town, to the
school, to the church, to the grocery store if
they disappear. You have to make them see the
people behind the paperwork. Make it real. Make
it completely undeniable. This has been, well,
it's been heavy. Yeah. But so important. Very
important. It's a conversation we have to have.
As we wrap up this deep dive, I just keep thinking
about the resilience we've seen in this story.
That's the word for it. Resilience. But it's
not the solitary pull yourself up by your bootstraps
kind of resilience. No, it's communal resilience.
It's shared. That's another story from the Bullvine
podcast. These are the people building the future
of dairy. And today, I think we learned that
building sometimes just means holding each other
up when the legs get kicked out from under you.
That's it exactly. And remember this. The cameras
left Lovington. The news cycle moved on to the
next thing. But the neighbors didn't. They stayed.
That's the part to remember. The neighbors didn't
leave. You can find more stories that matter
at www .thebullvine .com. Next time, we're talking
to a producer who is flipping the script on genetics
in a way you won't expect. He's turning data
into dollars in a whole new way. Subscribe so
you don't miss it. See you then. Take care.