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Missouri producer ‘loves being a dairy farmer’

A dairy farmer tells Brownfield he loves the business despite the extended slump in milk prices. Jay Fogle milks cows close to the growing Kansas City metro footprint.

“I love being a dairy farmer,” Fogle told Brownfield Ag News at the Heartland Dairy Expo in Springfield Thursday. “Being a poor dairy farmer is not as much fun as when times were better.”

Fogle is at the Heartland Dairy Expo because he likes attending conferences to learn better techniques and to become familiar with new products that he says give him more options to make his operation better.

“I love my cow herd; I love taking care of them,” said Fogle.

The government shutdown has prevented Fogle from signing up for a government subsidy that would otherwise help him get through these low prices.

“We’re not able to use one of the programs to insure our milk prices,” he said. “That’s definitely one that has hit home pretty good.”

For now, Fogle is getting through the current low ebb in the dairy market cycle.

“The spikes have been pretty short-lived and the valleys have been a lot longer, it seems like,” said Fogle, “and that’s what’s making this one particularly unenjoyable.”