Money is “screaming tight” for organic dairy farmers in the Skagit Valley as they confront declining dairy prices and higher costs.
MOUNT VERNON — Just off Cook Road east of Interstate 5 sits an unused 80-acre plot of land with the outline of a 49,000-square-foot building drawn in gravel.
“Now it’s a big, expensive parking lot,” said third-generation dairy farmer Charlie Dykstra.
The Dykstra farm isn’t the only organic dairy farm struggling.
“You won’t see a single dairy doing anything crazy right now,” said Dykstra, who manages the farm with his father and brother.
Conventional dairy farms have been struggling for years. Until recently, Dykstra said, it seemed organic dairy farms were somewhat shielded from the volatility of the conventional market.
Mount Vernon organic dairy farmer Alan Mesman said the price he’s getting for milk from processors has been dropping about a dollar a month for about the past year and a half.
But in stores, consumers don’t see the price change, Dykstra said, as the shelf price for organic milk has hardly moved.
“It’s such a small market that it doesn’t take much to oversupply it,” said Bow organic dairy farmer Dean Wesen.
Even with a largely robotic milking operation, Mesman said he’s had to lay off two part-time employees because of the drop in the price he can get for milk.
“We’re screaming tight on money,” he said.
In addition to being affected by the surplus of organic milk, organic dairy farmers are also being hurt by the low price of conventional milk. And while milk prices are going down, Mesman said the price of the grain that is fed to the cows is going up.
Jay Gordon, policy director for the Washington State Dairy Federation, said he believes the organic dairy market will level out. It gained traction in the 1990s and early 2000s, Gordon said, and now it’s settling into the patterns seen in more mature markets.
Gordon said much of the price in the state is based on what will be paid by Organic Valley, a cooperative to which all the organic dairy farms in Skagit County sell their milk.
“But even Organic Valley — significant as it is — doesn’t exist in a bubble,” Gordon said.
Organic Valley Vice President of Farmer Affairs Travis Forgues said four years ago the co-op didn’t have enough organic milk, so they invited conventional producers to go organic.
It’s a familiar tune for Andrew Dykstra, who started working on the family farm when he was in the second grade.
“The dairies are supporting the grains, which support operations like the Bread Lab and (Cairnspring Mills), which in turn supports the dairies by using their land to grow grains,” Gordon said.
Despite the tough times, Andrew Dykstra said there’s hope for the industry.
Organic Valley has been able to sell more milk at an organic premium rather than having to sell excess product at conventional price.
And Forgues said that as millennials start having children, he expects the demand for organic dairy products to increase.