Drought. Wildfires. Record-breaking heat. Not to mention a pandemic that’s upended the supply chain. For dairy farmers and cheesemakers on the West Coast, this is one tough summer. Triple-digit temperatures and lack of water are stressing pastures and dairy animals. If such conditions are the new normal in California and Oregon, is dairy farming even viable? David Gremmels (above) of Oregon’s Rogue Creamery and Reggie Jones of Central Coast Creamery in California shared their thoughts on these trying times. I have edited their comments for brevity and clarity.
David Gremmels, president of Rogue Creamery, Central Point, Oregon:
“We’re down 20 to 22 percent from this time last year. As you can imagine, the fields are stressed. We practice rotational grazing, but the fields aren’t recovering as they have in years past, so we have to allow the pastures to rest more. We have to bring in more organic hay and the price of that has gone up 66 percent since last year. It’s a complex juggle between trying to maximize grazing but also retain the quality of the pastures.
“Fortunately, we haven’t seen an increase in grain prices—we feed the cows a bit of grain when they’re milked as a reward—but we know there’s drought in the Midwest, so we’re anticipating an increase.
“We’re now nearly a decade into having a ‘wildfire season.’ Sadly, this has become the new norm. We have to learn from other farmers who have faced difficult weather patterns, as they have in Australia. We have to build topsoil to retain as much rainfall as possible so we can prevent the desertification of our land. And we have to manage the herd size. One of the challenges will be culling.
“We’re in a highly productive river basin so the topsoil is rich, and normally we’re able to graze from March to October, but I’ve already started feeding hay. We’re conscious of the “Wild and Scenic” Rogue River and doing our part to conserve so we limit watering to every other week. That river is probably down a foot to a foot-and-a-half from where it was last year.
“I would imagine that cheese prices are going to go up. Our feed prices are going up dramatically. We’ve seen a drop in milk yield from 55 pounds (per cow) a day to 45 pounds, and it’s due to the heat and the forage. That’s a drop of a pound of cheese per cow per day. Yet our labor cost is going up, along with our cost of power and packaging.
“Dairy is resilient, but year after year? I’m an optimist, but I’m also a realist. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the drought experience in Australia to get some insights and get inspired. It’s all about recharging those aquifers.”
Reggie Jones, proprietor of Central Coast Creamery, Paso Robles, California:
Central Coast Creamery ribbon winner: Ewereka
“The drought is obviously a concern. I just signed a five-year lease for our space. But is it sustainable in California to make cheese? What’s the water situation going to look like in five years? There’s not a lot of oversight on ground water around here. Cheesemaking is water intensive, and water prices are definitely going up. We get charged for the water coming in and the wastewater going out. During the last drought, we changed some of our procedures to reduce water use but we’re at the limit.
“Feed prices are really high and I’m hearing lots of complaints. These types of pressures are the most intense on the smaller dairies. It forces them out. A lot of the goat and sheep guys went out last year, so there’s less milk, and now with the drought, it doesn’t look great for next year’s milk supply. It’s not affecting our growth yet, but it makes it very hard to plan.
“We’re going through an expansion and we’ve built a bigger aging room, but the sheeting that goes on the walls is delayed for eight weeks. Usually, you can go to Home Depot and get it. We’re coming out with a new cheese, but it’s also delayed because of supply-chain issues. The plastic molds have been sitting on a dock in Italy for 2-1/2 months.”
Hopefully pandemic-related backups will eventually ease, but persistent drought and temperature extremes may define the future. With autumn’s cooler weather and rainy season still weeks away, West Coast dairy farmers have some challenging days ahead.