Wisconsin dairy farmers have seen a major decline in milk prices and an overabundance of milk on the marketplace this summer.
According to Hope Kirwan with Wisconsin Public Radio, that means at least some producers have also seen their milk go down the drain. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported last week that truckloads of milk were being dumped through the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.
A spokesperson told the paper that the amount being disposed of had recently declined to five truckloads per week. Producers in western Wisconsin were also forced to dump milk in June when a creamery in Minnesota shut down for 30 days and they weren’t able to find another buyer.
Chuck Nicholson, agricultural economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s not unusual to see some milk dumping in late spring and early summer. “We tend to see a peak in the production of milk per cow around this time of year,” he said. “That’s based on biology of the cow and the timing of what the climate looks like to make that milk.”
Nicholson said the milk processing system is built to try to absorb the seasonal production increase, referred to as the “spring flush.” But he said this year’s increase is much larger than usual because farmers have been working to increase production.
“We had some really tremendous milk prices last year that gave dairy farmers a message, ‘Hey, we need more milk in the marketplace,'” he said. “Producers are pretty good at responding to those kinds of incentives. So now we’re bringing that additional milk online compared to last year. And so that’s part of why we are seeing the issues.”
Nicholson said dairy producers and processors don’t want to see milk go to waste, so dumping is usually a last resort. He said it’s only when a specific plant has run out of capacity and there is no available space at plants within reasonable driving distance.
“It’s a really unfortunate thing when it happens, but everybody’s generally trying pretty hard to make sure that it doesn’t,” he said. “Nobody wants to lose the economic value and also, most farms and companies don’t want to see the story in the newspaper that says my milk was dumped.”
