The lack of processing facilities for dairy farmers has always been a problem throughout the state and was highlighted even more during this pandemic.
Nebraska State Dairy Association Executive Director Kris Bousquet said Nebraska has five corporate processing facilities but only three of those take milk from Nebraska’s dairy farmers
On top of those already low numbers, the facilities are located in the north and eastern parts of the state, making dairy farmers around the central and western parts of the state travel some long distances.
Executive Director Bousquet said the processing facilities can only process so much product which continues to be a limiting factor in the success of the industry.
The Nebraska State Dairy Association has been working to change this for many years by creating some incentives for processors and producers to move to Nebraska.
“We’ve gone out and worked directly with communities across the state of Nebraska to find the perfect fit and to figure out what their resources are, so that when we find a match, we can basically lay a map on the table and say pick your spot.”
Dairy farmers have had many struggles throughout this pandemic between prices plummeting to dumping their product, but just like other businesses, they also had to worry about the safety of their employees.
"Around Easter we had an employee unfortunately test positive for COVID-19. We felt like we found out pretty early and pretty quick so he was able to stay home really quick, that was probably our largest struggle," said Steve Wolfe.
On top of that, they were dealing with the lack of processing throughout the state at an even more pronounced level.
" We saw a 200% increase in grocery store demand and a 90% decrease in the food service industry so the restaurant demand was down any other food service companies, they weren’t buying any product," said Nebraska State Dairy Association Executive Director Kris Bousquet.
Bousquet said the processing facilities had to shift the way they operate to try and meet the demand, which ended up displacing a lot of milk, especially for those in the western part of the state.
“It’s very unfortunate that we lost the plant in Ravenna about eight or nine years ago. If we could’ve attracted a few more dairies at that time, we could’ve definitely kept that cheese plant and that has really depressed the dairy industry," said Wolfe.
Through these many struggles, relief in the form of supply management programs and financial assistance like the pay roll protection loan, helped ease some of the stress for dairy farmers.
“Farmers don’t want more help, they want good prices and so they would much rather have a good pay price rather than a hand out. I think our farmers want to see the price improve and that’s the form of support that they want," said Bosquet.
Wolfe has been in the dairy industry for 35 years and says he had never seen prices drop so quickly – but now things are beginning to look back up.
“It looks like if we can get through some of this price fluctuation and get through some of these basis problems, then we’ll receive some pretty optimist milk prices. Right now our future looks much better now than it did 6 weeks ago," said Wolfe.