COMMENTARY
Hard acts to follow
Sometimes dairy farmers can get
away with skipping a minor chore
like maybe doing some maintenance
in the milk barn or changing their
tractor’s oil on schedule. But one
thing the industry can’t afford to skip
is recruiting the next generation of
dairy farmers.
If the sons and daughters of today’s
dairy farmers decide they would
rather work in a bank or a computer
shop than on the farm, it won’t matter
how much we improve herd
genetics and feeding strategies, or
how many innovative new dairy products
co-ops develop. The industry
will move somewhere else. As you
can read on page 7 of this issue, it’s
not that farm kids today are afraid of
hard work; it’s more the unrelenting
time demands of dairy farming and
the uncertainty of being able to earn
a decent living from the farm.
Just how incredibly time-demanding
dairy life can be was hammered
home for me in Central California in
the mid-1980s. I had gone to Los
Banos in western Merced County to
interview a dairy farmer who was to
be honored for a lifetime of volunteer
work with the FFA. The man, then in
his 70s, was born and raised on the
family farm. After the interview, as I
snapped a few photos, I observed that
it must be nice living only about 70
minutes from Monterey, one of the
most beautiful places on earth. “You
know, Dan,” he said matter of factly,
“I’ve never been there.” Seems there
just was never time in 70 years.
When I recently related this conversation
to North Dakota dairy farmer Alan Qual, he didn’t bat an
eyelash. “I don’t doubt it at all,” Qual
said, recalling how growing up on a
family dairy, all of his activities
revolved around the unrelenting
demands of milking.
But unlike many, Qual and his
brothers have children who are intent
are carrying on the family dairying
tradition. Part of the secret: making
sure everyone gets every other weekend
off. It makes a huge difference, he
says. So while dairy life will never be a
40-hour-per week job, there are ways
to provide for a good quality of life.
In the next issue of Rural
Cooperatives, we will continue to focus
on this crucial subject when we take a
look at a new co-op in Vermont that
was created, with the help of USDA,
to supply temporary laborers for dairy
farmers when they fall ill or want to
take some time off. While this is a specialized
labor co-op, existing co-ops
can, and sometimes do, serve as
sources of information on how to deal
with labor issues.
One more strategy for dairy parents
who want to encourage their
children to take over the farm: make
sure they periodically read the Dilbert
comic strip before giving up the
country for life in an office cubicle!
Farewell, Mr. Duffey
Speaking of hard acts to follow,
Patrick Duffey recently ended his 47 year career as a journalist and farm
editor, including 35 years spent writing
about cooperatives and 23 years
at USDA. Cooperatives today are
better informed and stronger thanks
to Pat’s efforts.
He began his career at a Waupaca,
Wis., weekly newspaper, then moved
on to the job of farm editor at the
Appleton Post-Crescent, a Wisconsin
daily. There he wrote about federal
milk market orders, dairy cooperatives
and all the other agricultural
activities of the region. After five
years, he went to work as publicity
director for GROWMARK in
Bloomington, Ill., where he was soon
immersed in the operations of a
major Midwest farm supply co-op.
He had his hands full becoming
familiar with all the FS facilities, new
faces and geography, annual meetings,
director training and businessupdate
conferences and quickie
lessons in the nuts and bolts of agriculture.
He must have been enjoying himself,
because 12 years whizzed by
pretty fast.
In the fall of 1980, he moved to
USDA and began editing this magazine,
then called “Farmer
Cooperatives.” He spent 12 years as
its editor, and another 11 years as the
chief technical editor of all USDA coop
information and research reports.
Untold thousands of people across the
United States and internationally have
a better understanding of what can be
achieved through cooperatives as a
result of Pat’s efforts. For that, we all
owe him our thanks.
As I finish this commentary, a box
of recent USDA co-op reports and
magazines has been delivered to my
office, which Pat has asked that I
drop off at his house on my way
home tonight. He is going to distribute
them at the annual meeting of the
Virginia Council of Cooperatives
proving that “retirement” is a relative
term for those who believe in co-ops
as strongly as Pat.
By Dan Campbell
Editor
