OPINION Dairy herd numbers continue to slide downward

As expected, dairy herd numbers in Wisconsin declined in 2022 as they have every year since the 1930`s. The loss of 417 herds during the year led to a current total of 6,116, down from the 6,533 of a year ago, was about as expected.

Some years ago I wrote: “In 1968, there were 71,000 dairy farms in our state, in 1998 there were 23,000. That’s a drop of 48,000 in 30 years, 1,600 per year, 4.3 herds per day. Wow!"...
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Ken Notes: ...and we milk more cows now than ever before. Some of this consolidation of farms is a good thing, but most of the loss comes from mega factory farms, and unless they are practicing best manure management options (Most are NOT) they are draining our deep aquifers, and contaminating our normal wells and surface waters. If we do not work together on this now it will be too late...