“Maine has 307 dairy farms, down from about 500 in 2000, and every one of them is family-owned. That’s a fraction of the number of dairy farms operating in the state 50 years ago, and the number is decreasing with each passing year.” When dairy farms population is decreasing, the farmers markets are increasing. Now in local towns you will see farmer stands everywhere, trying to sell crops in the summer.
A man named Jim Leary had been shipping milk in 1940 when there were limited dairy farms in his area. A lot of the dairy farms were rather small. In 1981, there were about 12-15 dairy farms their area. The Leary Farm is the only farm left. 262 dairy farms remain active in the state of Maine as of 2015. As previously stated above, Maine has 307 dairy farms, down from about 500 in 2000, and every one of them is family-owned. The number of dairy farms are decreasing each passing year.
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Farms have either gone out of business altogether or shifted their focus to something other than a dairy operation. In the past there would be millions of farmers and that’s how people got their milk, eggs, crops, etc. Now that there are very little farmers, the dairy farm population is decreasing. But Maine farms also have inherently higher costs in some areas. Feed for the cows, usually is a farm’s largest expense. It must be purchased and shipped to Maine from other parts of the country. As booms and busts in dairy pricing become more extreme, these costs take a greater toll on a farm’s bottom line. A lot of farmers would blame the federal price support system that favors the larger, industrial-style farms in the Midwest and West over the nation’s smaller dairy farms. “If there’s a big crash in the price that farmers get paid for their milk, or feed starts to creep back up, it’s pretty