E315 Dairy’s Great Consolidation: What’s Really Behind the Loss of 15,000 Farms

Everyone's blaming immigrant workers for killing the family dairy farm, but what if the entire narrative is backwards? This episode destroys conventional wisdom with hard data, revealing that immigrant labor produces 79% of America's milk supply—and removing this workforce would trigger a $32.1 billion economic catastrophe. While 15,866 farms vanished between 2017-2022, milk production actually increased 5%. The real killer isn't immigration; it's a brutal $10 per hundredweight cost gap that makes smaller operations economically impossible to sustain.

Key Takeaways:

• Scale Economics Dominate: Why farms with 2,000+ cows operate at $23.06/cwt while 100-199 cow operations face $32.83/cwt—and what this means for your survival strategy
• The $32 Billion Question: Texas A&M research reveals ca ...