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O ver the last two decades, small- and medium-scale livestock farms have given
way to factory farms that confine thousands of cows, hogs and chickens in tightly
packed facilities. In Wisconsin, there were 270,000 hogs, 40,400 beef cattle, 257,000
dairy cows and 7.4 million chickens on the largest operations in 2007, according to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture. Wisconsin ranks fifth in
the nation in factory-farmed dairy cows.
Dairy
In recent decades, small and mid-sized dairy farms disap-
peared nationally and were replaced by factory-farmed
dairies that now dominate milk production. Between
1997 and 2007, the United States lost 52,000 dairy farms
— about 5,000 farms every year.1 The rise of the factory- in 1997 to 257,000 in 2007, the state’s dairy industry was
farmed dairy industry has transformed the national land- still overwhelmed by the size and growth of factory-farmed
scape and shifted milk production away from traditional dairies in western states. Despite being outpaced, the state
dairy states like Wisconsin, Michigan and New York to still added more than 215,000 dairy cows to the largest op-
mega-dairy operations in western states.2 Food & Water erations over the decade and the average size of Wisconsin
Watch found that although the number of factory-farmed factory-farmed dairies increased by almost a quarter, from
dairy cows in Wisconsin has grown six-fold, from 42,000 778 in 1997 to 946 in 2007.
One processor, Dean Foods, controls around 40 percent of Total Factory Farm Animals in Wisconsin
the U.S. fluid milk supply. Dairy farmers of all sizes have
Beef Cattle Dairy Cows Broilers Layers
been in a financial crisis for several years, as milk prices
collapsed and production costs skyrocketed. Many dairy
farmers lost between $100 and $200 per cow every month
in 2009. This loss did not translate to savings for consum-
ers. Between July 2007 and June 2009, the price farmers
received for milk fell by nearly half. But the retail price for
whole milk only declined by 22.6 percent and the price of
cheddar cheese actually increased.
Endnotes