Milk Dumping Part 2
Milk Dumping Part 2
Ryan Elbe is a dairy farmer. He and his family operate a 2,400 cow dairy.
Elbe is one of several farmers who have been asked to do something they never thought they would be asked to do... He says, Dairy Farms of America asked them to Dump Milk.
"Our field rep would have called us and then several minutes later the actual DFA central area manager called us to kind of voice the severity of what's going on and to kind of get us to really actually do it. I don't know if there were issues getting other farms to do this, but just the thought of it...there's a lot of pride that goes into producing milk these days so the thought of just dumping it down the drain is very disheartening."
According to a press release from the Dairy Farmers of America, "with the uncertainty of COVID-19 and evolving consumer buying habits, we are seeing demand for dairy products change....This, in combination with the perishable nature of our product, has resulted in a need to dispose of raw milk on farms, in some circumstances." For the Elbe family, this is uncharted waters as they have never dumped milk before…
"This is the first and I really hope this is the last. But you know what, I'm just going to hang tight and see what happens. We are willing to continue dumping milk because we have the storage capacity to handle it if they ask for that. I hope they don't, I hope they find a place for the milk, but for right now from what I got we are roughly three percent of the milk that they needed to find a place for and asked to start dumping."
