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 the dairy industry noise
to get you the insights that actually matter
for your operation. If you are looking for the
glossy, PR -approved version of dairy farming,
where the sun is always shining and the cows
never get sick, you are definitely in the wrong
place. Oh, for sure. We are here for the real
stuff. The dirt, the data, and the dollars. And
today we are diving deep into a feature piece
that honestly, it hits a little too close to
home for a lot of us. The title alone tells you
exactly where we're going. The kitchen table
solution, turning dairy labor churn into community.
It's a feature that tackles, I mean, it tackles
the single biggest headache on the farm today.
And no, for once, it is not the price of soybean
meal and it isn't the class three milk price.
It's labor. But this isn't just another segment
complaining about health wanted signs. This is
about turning a crisis into a community solution
using four very specific farmer tested playbooks.
Right. And I want to set the stage here properly
because we can talk stats all day and believe
me, we will. But we need to acknowledge the visceral
reality of this. Yeah. The feeling. The feeling.
We all know that specific feeling. It's 4 a .m.
Your phone buzzes on the nightstand. It's pitch
black outside. The house is cold. And you get
that pit in your stomach because a text at four
in the morning is never good news. It's never,
Hey, milk prices just went up or the corn looks
great. Never. It's just, it's the sound of your
day imploding before it even starts. Your milker
can't make it sick or the new chair option. I
quit. And in that split second before you've
even put your feet on the floor, your whole day,
your whole week, just reshuffle. Oh, absolutely.
You're thinking about the broken scraper chain
you need to fix, the feed delivery that's coming
at 8, the vet check at 10, and now you have to
go milk for six hours. The stress just stacks.
It's physical. That is the mission of this deep
dive today. We want to prove that while that
turnover, that dread, it feels normal because
it seems like everyone is dealing with it. It
means the system is fundamentally broken. Right.
It's normalized chaos. It is. But here is the
good news and really the core thesis from the
source material we're analyzing today. Yeah.
Just because the system is broken doesn't mean
your farm has to be. And that's the hook. Because
usually when we talk about labor, it's just a
gripe session at the coffee shop. Nobody wants
to work. Gen Z is lazy. Immigration is a mess.
And sure, there is truth in the frustration.
Of course. But this analysis looks at four specific
playbooks, real models that guys are using right
now to stop the bleeding. And the stakes are
massive. We talk about profitability leaks all
the time, spilled feed, high somatic cell counts,
poor reproduction. But labor turnover, that is
a profitability leak that is likely worse than
your budget even shows. It's not a leak. It's
a gushing wound. It really is. And the personal
stakes, I mean, you've lived this, not just money.
It's about whether you sleep at night. It's about
whether you can physically keep doing this without
blowing out a knee or your back. And honestly,
it's about the next generation. Yeah, that's
the big one. It is. If your kids see you miserable,
constantly putting out labor fires, struggling
to find people to do the basic work, do they
want the keys to the farm? I think we all know
the answer to that. Why would they sign up for
a life of constant crisis management? Exactly.
They won't. They'll go get a job in town with
weekends off. We are going to tease a provocative
point right up front, too. The solutions we are
discussing today, they are not government programs.
There is no new policy coming down the pipe to
fix this for you. Nope. Nobody in a suit is coming
to save you. If you're waiting for Washington
to fix the dairy labor crisis, you're going to
lose the farm before the ink is dry on any legislation.
It's just not going to happen. And here's the
scary part for some listeners. Some of these
solutions involve things farmers are notoriously
bad at. Like opening your books to your employees
or admitting to your neighbors, your peers, your
competitors, technically, that you are drowning
and you don't know what to do. Yeah, that vulnerability
piece is tough. It goes against the grain. We
like to be independent. I can do it myself. But
that independence might be exactly what's killing
us on this issue. Okay, so let's get into the
deep dive. Segment one, problem identification.
We're calling this the bleed. Good and important.
Let's look at the numbers from the source material.
According to the Farm Program Survey, the average
dairy employee turnover is 38 .8%. 38 .8%. Let's
just pause on that for a second. Now, for context,
the private sector average is roughly 47%. So
you might look at that and say, hey, dairy is
actually doing better than Burger King. But that
is a completely false equivalency. It's apples
and oranges. 38 .8 % in dairy feels absolutely
devastating compared to 47 % in retail. Well,
if a burger flipper quits, you can train a new
one in an afternoon. The protocols are simple.
The risk is low. If they mess up, what happens?
Someone gets a burger with pickles when they
ask for no pickles. Big deal. Right. The consequences
are minimal. But if a milker quits or a feeder
quits, the consequences are biological. They're
immediate. Exactly. And that 38 .8%. It feels
almost optimistic for some guys I know. I was
just thinking that. But think about the reality
of that math. That means if you have a crew of
10, you are replacing four of them every single
year. Four out of 10. So you're constantly in
a state of training. Constantly. You never get
to... expert level with your crew because you're
always onboarding the new guy. You're trying
to run a football team where the quarterback
changes every third game. You can't run complex
plays. You're just trying not to fumble the staff.
And let's talk about the foundation of that workforce.
Where are these folks coming from? The source
material cites a National Milk Producers Federation
survey that says immigrant workers account for
51 % of all dairy labor. Which anecdotally feels
low for a lot of regions. I mean, in some parts
of the country, it's way higher than that. I
would agree. But here is the kicker. Farms that
employ immigrant labor produce 79 % of the U
.S. milk supply. That is the stat that should
keep industry leaders up at night. 79 % of the
milk. Let that sink in. Basically, 8 out of every
10 gallons of milk on a store shelf are there
because of this specific workforce. So we have
a system where the vast majority of our production
is dependent on a workforce that... frankly,
lives in a state of constant legal and social
uncertainty. It's a fragile foundation. That's
the only way to describe it. If policy shakes,
or if enforcement ramps up, or even if just the
fear level rises in a community. It's not theoretical.
Not at all. It hits the bulk tank immediately.
It's not a political debate for us. It's whether
the cows get milked tomorrow morning. The article
tells the story of a farmer named Mark, and I
think Mark is a composite of a lot of farmers
we talk to. Yeah, Mark's story is the story of
a thousand farmers. He's in the milk house. It's
early. Steam is rising off the cows. The compressor
is humming that rhythmic chug, chug, chug. I
can picture it. And he gets a text from his neighbor,
Dave. Mark has already stressed. He's got a scraper
chain thumping in the background. He's got a
banker meeting at noon to discuss an operating
line renewal. And he realizes he has lost more
people in the last year than in the previous
decade combined. Wow. In one year. In the isolation.
That's what jumped out at me from this story.
Mark felt like he was the only one failing. He
looked at his neighbor's farms from the road
and thought, they have clean driveways. Their
sheds are painted. They must have this figured
out. I'm the one who can't keep guys. The classic
farmer comparison game. Exactly. Until he admits
he's out of ideas. Yeah. And that's when Dave
steps in. Dave's text, heard you lost a couple
good guys, coffee at the diner. That was the
lifeline. Because until you admit you're out
of ideas, you're just suffering in silence. Mark
admitted he was drowning. That is a dangerous
place to be as a business owner. But man, admitting
it is the first step to actually fixing it. So
that's the emotional landscape. But we promised
to cut through the noise and look at the hard
data. Let's move to segment two, follow the money.
We need to talk about the hidden cost of this
churn. Yes. Because I think most farmers look
at the cost of a help -wanted ad and think that's
the price of turnover. Oh, absolutely. We're
great at math when it comes to rations. We count
pennies on dry matter intake. We watch the teat
dip usage like a hawk. But we are terrible at
calculating the forensic accounting of a catastrophic
resignation. Well, let's try. Michigan State
University Extension estimates that turnover
costs are between 100 % and 150 % of the annual
salary of the position. Okay, hold on. Hold on.
I have to play the skeptic here because I know
the listeners are doing it right now. If I have
a milker making, say, $30 ,000 or $35 ,000 a
year, you're telling me it costs me $45 ,000
to replace him. That's what the data suggests.
That sounds like consultant math. It really does.
It sounds like numbers cooked up to sell me a
seminar. How do we actually get to that number
in the real world? It sounds high. I get it.
But let's break it down line by line. First,
the easy stuff. Recruitment and hiring. You know,
putting out the ads, the time spent interviewing.
That's $500 to $2 ,000 right off the top. Okay,
fair. Advertising costs money. Background checks.
But that's peanuts compared to $45 ,000. True.
But add your time. How many hours do you spend
on Facebook Marketplace answering messages from
people who aren't serious? That's too many. How
many interviews where the guy just doesn't show
up? If you value your time at even a modest management
rate, that adds up fast. But okay, let's move
to the next tier. Training. The first 90 days.
That's estimated at $3 ,000 to $6 ,000. Why so
high? Where's that number coming from? It's because
that new person is slower. They are less efficient.
And crucially, the person training them, usually
your best employee, your herdsman or you, is
now working at half speed. Ah, I see. They're
supervising. So you are paying two wages for
one job output for weeks, maybe months. Okay,
I'll buy that. You're burning payroll efficiency.
You've got two bodies doing one person's work,
essentially. But we're still not at 45 grand.
Here is where the real money vanishes. This is
the invisible loss. Loss productivity. The estimate
is $5 ,000 to $12 ,000 per departure. And I think
this is where we need to get into the biology
of it. Okay, let's translate lost productivity
into barn language. Because productivity sounds
abstract, like something on a spreadsheet. Right.
Let's make it real. Think about the milking routine.
A new guy doesn't have the muscle memory. Maybe
he strips, he dips, and he wipes. But he lags
on the attachment. He's just a few seconds too
slow. And he misses that critical 60 to 90 second
oxytocin window for peak milk letdown. Exactly.
So now you have a cow milking out slow. She's
leaving residual milk in the udder because the
letdown wasn't peaked. Okay. And what happens
when you leave residual milk in the udder consistently,
milking after milking, for the two weeks? while
the new guy learns. Your somatic cell count starts
creeping up. And there it is. You trigger subclinical
mastitis. You aren't just losing milk flow in
that moment. You're actively damaging utter health
across the herd. And then the clinical cases
start. So now you have a hot quarter. You're
treating the cow. You're dumping our milk. And
if you have to dump a whole tank because of antibiotic
residue, well, there's your thousands of dollars
right there in one shot. It's a cascade. Or take
the breeding pen. A new feeder or a new scraper
operator isn't tuned in to cow behavior yet.
They're just focused on getting the task done.
So they miss a heat. They miss that cow in standing
heat because they're not looking for it. Right.
And a missed heat is 21 days open. At today's
feed prices, carrying a cow for an extra three
weeks with no production gain. I mean, you can
do the math. That adds up fast. Or they miss
a transition cow. The classic one. She's just
a little off feed. Her ears are down. But the
new guy, he thinks she's just resting. And two
days later, what do you have? You have a DA.
A twisted stomach. So now you have a vet surgery
bill. Or worse, a dead cow. Okay, so when you
stack it up like that, the vet bills, the dumped
milk, the extra days open, the potential for
dead cows. Okay. You can hit 12 grand pretty
fast. It's death by a thousand cuts. It is. It's
not one big check you write for turnover. It's
a hundred small losses that bleed you dry. So
if we summarize, a conservative loss is $15 ,000
to $25 ,000 for every experience departure. So
if you have a 20 -person crew and you have 10
% turnover, which is... really low for our industry,
that's two people leaving. That is nearly $50
,000 of invisible loss just vanishing from your
bottom line. And we sit around the kitchen table
wondering why the margins feel so tight, even
when the milk price is halfway decent. Right.
It's bleeding out through the exit door. There
was a quote in the source material from a Vermont
farmer named Jennifer that really summed this
all up for me. She said, if you can't afford
to treat people right, you can't afford to be
in business. That's a punch in the mouth. It
sounds harsh, right? But she's right. If your
business model relies on burning through people
and just eating that churn cost, you don't have
a resilient business. You're a grinder. So we
have established the problem is massive and the
cost is crippling. Now, let's get to the solution
side of things, the hopeful part. The source
material outlines four specific playbooks. These
are real world models. Let's start with playbook
one, the Valley Network. This goes back to Mark
and Dave, the diner meeting. Right. They met
at the diner, realized they were both in the
same sinking boat, and then they moved the conversation
to the kitchen table. But they didn't just commiserate.
They didn't just complain about the government.
They pooled their resources. And this is the
genius part, and I want to get into the mechanics
of this, because pooling resources sounds vague
and kind of corporate. Right. What does it actually
mean? They realized that navigating the immigration
system is expensive, it's confusing, and it's
scary. Dave had to contact an immigration attorney
who knew cows and knew the law. That's a unicorn,
by the way. You don't find that every day. It
is. A huge advantage. And individually, maybe
Mark couldn't afford to keep her on retainer.
Maybe the hourly rate was just too scary to even
consider. So they got a group together. Six,
maybe ten neighboring farms. And they actually
formalized it. They created a shared service
agreement, almost like a limited liability partnership
just for legal services. And they put the attorney
on a monthly retainer. Let's say it's $2 ,000
a month split six ways. That's roughly $330 a
farm per month. That is the price of a few bags
of mineral. Exactly. For $330 a month, Mark now
has access to a top -tier immigration specialist
on speed dial. They held monthly Zoom calls or
kitchen table meetings with a laptop propped
up on the counter. And what were they doing on
these calls? They weren't just chatting about
the weather. No, they were doing the hard work.
They were scrubbing their I -9s. They were auditing
their own employee files before the government
did it for them. Proactive, not reactive. 100%.
They were asking the tough questions. What if
a case gets denied? What happens if the rules
change next month? They were building a legal
fortress around their labor force. And the benefit
here wasn't just the legal advice, though that
was crucial. The article points out it was about
sharing the emotional load. Yes. There's a detail
in the source about a co -op rep sitting in on
one of these meetings. And he had this light
bulb moment. He realized, you think this is policy?
Our members live this at kitchen tables. That's
a huge shift in perspective. It's not an abstract
issue anymore. But the real win the payoff was
the story about the worker handing Mark an envelope
in the parlor. That moment. It changes everything,
doesn't it? It does. Mark's standing there. One
of his guys, who has been living in fear for
years, fear of driving, fear of leaving the farm,
hands him an envelope with his status approval,
his green card. Wow. And he says, my daughter
can grow up here now. That's stability. That
man is not leaving for 50 cents more an hour
down the road. He's planted. He's part of the
community now. Exactly. You've created loyalty
that money actually can't buy. You've created
a future for his family on your farm. That's
playbook one, the immigration support circle.
Stop trying to navigate the legal system alone.
It's too complex and it's too expensive. Okay,
let's look at playbook two, technology plus people.
This is the story of Tom and Sarah in Minnesota.
This one is really interesting because usually
when we talk about robots, we talk about replacing
labor. Right. The narrative is always, I can't
find milkers, so I'll buy Lili's or Delaval's
and fire everyone. But Tom and Sarah did it differently.
They didn't just buy robots to get rid of people.
They used the transition to upskill their team.
But the kitchen table twist here is who they
invited to the planning meeting. Yeah, this is
wild. They invited their vet, their nutritionist.
And their pastor. To the machine shed to talk
about buying milking robots. I love it because
the pastor asked the question that the robot
salesman never will. The salesman talks about
milk flow and tea detachment and all the free
time you'll have. The pastor asked, who are you
going to call when something breaks at 2 a .m.?
Because it will break. And if you two, Tom and
Sarah, are the only ones answering that phone,
you're still in prison. You just have a more
expensive jail cell. That is profound. It's about
creating a sustainable lifestyle, not just a
more efficient milk harvest system. So how did
they handle the workforce transition? Because
taking a guy who has milked cows in a parlor
for 10 years and putting him in front of a computer
screen isn't easy. No, it's a huge culture shock,
a huge learning curve. But they didn't fire the
crew. They identified the ones who had that stock
sense. You know, the ones people just get cows.
Yeah. They had a milker. A woman who was tired
of the physical grind, her wrists were hurting,
her back was hurting. She learned to read the
robot data. And what specifically did she learn?
What does that look like? Well, she learned to
look at conductivity graphs. For those who don't
know, when salt levels in milk rise, conductivity
goes up, which is a very early sign of mastitis.
Okay. She learned to spot that little spike on
a graph a full 24 hours before the cow ever showed
clinical signs. Like chunks in the milk. So she's
catching it before it's a real problem. The vet
in the article said the robot gave numbers. She
gave insight. That's the difference right there.
You turn a laborer into a herd manager. You turn
a physical job into an analytical one. And suddenly
that job is a career. It's easier on the body.
It engages the brain. And it pays better because
the value she's providing is so much higher.
And the impact on the next generation because
this ties directly into succession. Oh, it's
huge. Tom and Sarah's daughter, she had told
them flat out, I'm not coming back to the farm.
I see you guys exhausted. I want no part of this
life. Which is a story we hear all the time.
All the time. But after the transition, she started
seeing the farm differently. It wasn't just physical
drudgery anymore. It was data. It was management.
It was genetics. The article says she started
teaching 4 -H kids how to read melt flow graphs
from the robot software. She saw a place where
she could use her brain, not just her back. That's
how you save the family farm. You make it a place
people actually want to work, including your
own kids. I'm into that. Okay, playbook three.
This one is going to start a fight. I can feel
it. Oh, yeah. Higher retention wages. This is
the Jennifer model in Vermont. Yeah. Brace yourselves
for this one. Jennifer, she's got a 150 -cow
organic dairy, and she did the unthinkable. She
opened the books to her employees. She showed
them the financials, showed them exactly what
turnover was costing the farm, that $25 ,000
number we calculated earlier. And then she proposed
a deal. She offered a high -wage package. We're
tanking mid -20s per hour, plus housing, plus
education support. I can hear the guys at the
coffee shop right now slamming their mugs down.
Mid -20s an hour. I can't pay that. Milk is 18
bucks. I'm barely taking a draw myself. Of course.
That's the gut reaction. But you have to look
at the math. If you stop the churn, if you stop
losing $25 ,000 every time someone quits, that
money is there. It's just being redirected. Exactly.
Instead of burning it on... Turnover waste, the
training, the lost milk, the vet bills, you are
putting it directly into your employees' paychecks.
It's a reinvestment in your team. I get the logic.
But the cash flow crunch to get there before
you see the savings, that's scary. It is. It's
a leap of faith. You have to believe the retention
will happen before you see the savings on the
profit and loss statement. But the result speaks
for itself. The loyalty she bought with that
transparency and that wage was incredible. There's
the story about the neighbor in the article.
Yes. This is the proof in the pudding right here.
So a neighbor down the road, small tie stall
herd, gets in a real jam. There's a family emergency.
Their labor quits. No one to milk the cows. What
a nightmare scenario. The worst. Jennifer's crew
hears about it. Jennifer doesn't even have to
ask them. They organize a schedule among themselves.
They just stepped up on their own. One of her
guys goes over there after his shift is done
on Jennifer's farm, milks the neighbor's cows.
washes the pipeline, and then refuses to take
any money for it. Why? Why would he do that?
Because they felt secure. They weren't scrambling
for their own survival. They were paid well.
They were treated like partners. So they had
the mental and emotional capacity to help the
community. They weren't living paycheck to paycheck.
That's amazing. And then neighbors started pooling
money to fix up an old farmhouse for shared worker
housing. That's the kitchen table aspect again.
Three different farms chipping in to fix a roof
and replace some windows so that a worker family
has a warm, safe place to live. It benefits everyone
because now there is quality housing available
in the area, making it more attractive for other
workers. It creates an ecosystem where labor
wants to stay, not just a job, but a community.
Right. Okay, that brings us to the last one.
Playbook 4. Refugee Partnership. This is the
story of Jake and Emily in Wisconsin. This is
a really cool one, but it requires a lot of patience.
It's not a quick fix. So they hire a refugee
through a local resettlement agency. He's from
halfway around the world, maybe East Africa or
Central America. But the key is he has livestock
experience. He knows animals. But the challenge
is obvious. Language barrier. Culture shock.
Different milking styles, different ways of handling
cattle. Right. The story talks about them using
translation apps on their phones to communicate
basic commands in the parlor. Cow, stop. Milk,
it's awkward, it's slow. It's got to be frustrating
for everyone involved. And the cows don't care
about the app, though. No, the cows care about
demeanor. And this guy knew cows. He had that
quiet confidence around them. But the community
fix here was the cultural night. You can't just
have a stranger living in the bunkhouse and expect
them to integrate. So tell us about the machine
shed party. I love this image. They sweep out
the machine shed, move the planter, move the
skid loader. Emily makes a huge pot of chili
and some apple crisp. The new family brings their
traditional food, spicy stews, flatbreads, things
the neighbors have never seen before. And was
there venison sausage? It's Wisconsin. It's Wisconsin.
If there isn't venison sausage, is it even a
party? Of course, Pete from down the road brought
the sausage. But think about the scene. You've
got the local FFA kids setting up tables. You've
got the mail carrier. You've got the grumpy uncle
who never leaves his farm. And they're all sitting
there eating chili and looking at photos on this
guy's phone of his zebu cows back in his home
country. It humanized the labor force. It wasn't
the new worker or the immigrant. It was a father,
a cattleman just like them. And it revitalized
the community. It gave them a reason to gather
that wasn't a funeral or a farm auction. It brought
life back to the neighborhood. So those are the
four playbooks. Immigration networks with legal
teeth, tech plus, people with upskilling, high
wages based on open books, and refugee partnerships
built on community integration. And notice, none
of them are easy. None of them are quick fixes.
They all required effort, vulnerability, and
connection. Let's move to segment four, the reality
check. We need to hit some contrarian takes here.
We've alluded to it, but let's be explicit. The
suit fallacy. I'll say it again. Stop waiting
for the farm bill. Stop waiting for immigration
reform. I know we need it. The H -2A program
is a mess for year round dairy. The system is
broken. We all agree on that. But if you are
waiting for a politician to fix your labor problem,
you are going to go broke waiting. Absolutely.
These farmers in the article, Mark. Jennifer,
Tom Labor. They stopped waiting. They took control
of what they could control, which was their own
farm and their own neighborhood. And frankly,
relying on that independent farmer mindset is
a weakness here. It's a liability. Ooh, that's
a tough one for a lot of people to swallow. We
pride ourselves in independence. I can do it
myself. I don't need help. But this article proves
that independence is a liability in a labor crisis.
If you're trying to solve this alone, you will
fail. You just don't have the resources. No.
You need the neighbor. You need the lawyer. You
need the group. And it requires vulnerability.
You have to be the one to pick up the phone and
say, I'm not sleeping. You have to admit, I'm
scared about making payroll next month. And that
is terrifying for a farmer. We're supposed to
be stoic. We're supposed to be tough. But look
at what happened when Mark admitted it to Dave.
The cowl re -arrived. His community showed up
for him. Let's talk about the cost myth again,
because I know listeners are still hung up on
Jennifer paying mid -20s an hour. It's the difference
between cost and investment. We don't buy the
cheapest feed corn if we know it has mycotoxins
because we know it'll kill production. We don't
buy the cheapest semen if the genetics are garbage.
Why do we think we can buy the cheapest labor
and get a premium result? Cheap labor is expensive.
High turnover is expensive. If paying $5 more
an hour keeps a guy for five years instead of
five months, that is the cheapest money you will
ever spend. It pays for itself by stopping that
$25 ,000 churn cycle. It's mathematically sound,
even if it feels scary on the front end. It's
open book logic. And if you show the employees
the math, they get it too. They understand that
their efficiency pays their wage. You can build
incentives. If we keep somatic cell count under
150 ,000, that's a bonus for everyone. If we
catch 95 % of heats, that's a bonus. It makes
them partners in the success of the business.
Exactly. Let's look at segment five, future implications.
We touched on Tom and Sarah's daughter, but this
is really about succession. This is the elephant
in the room for the entire industry. The average
age of the American dairy farmer keeps climbing.
It's hovering near 60. If we don't fix this labor
and lifestyle equation, there's no one to take
over. The farms will just disappear. The daughter
in the story, she saw the shift. When the farm
became about management, data, and community,
rather than just endless, exhausting physical
toil, She became interested again. It's about
creating a farm that is survivable. Not just
financially survivable, but emotionally and physically
survivable. If the farm destroys your parents,
you don't want it. If the farm supports your
parents and gives them a good life, you might
want in on that. And community resilience. The
ripple effect, they meant. Yeah. The article
mentions that even if a farm, for whatever reason,
eventually has to sell out, these networks matter.
When you have that kitchen table group, you aren't
alone on sale day. Right. The neighbors show
up. The church ladies bring lasagna. It's not
just a business liquidation. It's a community
supporting one of its own through a tough transition.
It changes the exit strategy from a tragedy to
a transition. Exactly. It's about exiting with
dignity. Okay. We've covered a lot. We've unpacked
the data, the biological costs, the legal structures,
and the cultural shifts. Now let's get practical.
A farmer is listening to this in the tractor
or the truck. They're driving to the feed store.
What are the actionable insights? What do they
need to do? We've boiled this down to three things,
immediate, medium -term, and long -term. Hit
me with the immediate. What can they do this
week? It's the coffee rule. Pick one neighbor,
just one, not five, just one. Meet them at the
diner or the shop or lean on the fence post and
ask them honestly, what is one part of labor
that is keeping you up at night? That's it. That's
it. Stop pretending everything is fine. Break
the seal. Just start the conversation. You don't
have to start an LLC today or hire a lawyer.
Just drink the coffee and tell the truth for
10 minutes. I love that. It's a low barrier to
entry, just coffee and truth. What about the
medium term, say the next three to six months?
The two -person stop sign. You need to decide
right now as a management policy for your farm.
If you lose more than two core employees in a
single year, That is a stop sign. It's not a
higher, faster sign. It's a full -on stop sign.
So what do you do when you hit that stop sign?
You stop. You call a meeting with an expert,
your vet, an attorney, an extension agent, and
a trusted neighbor, and you review why. You do
a postmortem. Was it the waiters? Was it the
housing? Was it the schedule? Was it a manager?
You don't just put another warm body in the parlor.
You fix the leak before you turn the water back
on. That requires a ton of discipline. To actually
stop when you are panicked and shorthanded is
hard. It is. But panic hiring just leads to more
panic firing six months later. You have to break
the cycle. And the long term. What's the plan
for one to two years out? Build your kitchen
table cabinet. You need to formalize this support
network, whether it's an immigration network
like Mark and Dave or a shared housing co -op
like Jennifer's Community or a partnership with
a refugee agency. Stop managing labor alone.
Look for resources. Build the infrastructure
so that when the next crisis hits and it will
pause, the table is already set and the people
are already there. A kitchen table cabinet. I
like that phrase. It's your board of directors,
but with better food and more empathy. And probably
dirtier boots. Definitely dirtier boots. You
know, as we wrap this up, I keep thinking about...
That image of the machine shed party. The cultural
night. Yeah. People eating chili, talking about
cows, with that smell of diesel and silage in
the air. That is what a secure labor force looks
like. It doesn't look like a perfectly compliant
spreadsheet from HR. It looks like a community.
It looks like people showing up for each other.
It won't fix milk prices. I can't promise you
$25 milk, but it might mean the barn is still
lit tonight. and it might mean you aren't standing
in there alone. That's a powerful place to leave
it. This isn't just about business. It's about
the life we are trying to build out here. Absolutely.
This has been another Bullvine podcast from The
Bullvine Podcast. We hope this sparked some ideas
for your own kitchen table. For more straight
-talking industry analysis and maybe fewer sugar
-coated press releases, head on over to www .thebullvine
.com. Subscribe wherever you get podcasts. We're
out with new episodes every day. Keep your boots
clean and we'll catch on the next one. Take care,
everyone.