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Dairy Farmer Doug LaGrange

"I am an agronomist, nutritionist, veterinarian, businessman, accountant, student, adept at the computer, a mechanic… Not that we're an expert in all those, but we have to be pretty darn good at 'em all." That is what Doug LaGrange tells us about the joys of farming. He sits on the Town's Planning Board and is also running for Town Council. Upon graduating college in 1978, he continued the family legacy and runs his family farm, soon to be a Limited Liability Corporation. His kids are the 9th generation. But, are children called to farming as their forefathers were? What is the outlook for dairies? Mr. LaGrange gives us the scoop, the pros and cons of farming, and reminds us what a critical role farmers have in our lives.

Dairy Farmer Doug LaGrange explains to FBA Co-Founder Kimberly Feliciano how the facility is sanitized daily.

Q: How many people help on the farm?

“It’s my father and uncle, my brother David, and our one hired person. With our equipment being old, we do hire some custom operators to do field work.”

Q: Where does your milk go?

“It goes to our Co-op, AgriMark, a farmer-owned processing and marketing business. We own Cabot cheese, which has won awards globally. We recently purchased McCaddem cheese, an upstate NY company. Much of the milk goes for fluid (drinking milk). The last I knew, we supply Friendly’s restaurant, and we help supplement Hood and others. Co-ops will often ‘juggle’ milk to help each other out.”

Q: What differentiates you from Gaerelick?

“Gaerelick is a processor. They buy from farms. AgriMark is our “Gaerelick”, but I think Gaerelick, is a privately owned business, not a Co-op.”

Q: What is the cost to produce a gallon of milk?

“About $4.99 per 100lbs,($0.40/gal) but that’s only feed costs. Last year (2004) it was $14.99 to produce 100 lbs. We received $15.69 for that same 100 lbs, but it does not make up for 3 yrs of low prices! Oil prices have a large effect on fertilizer costs, too.”

Doug explains the process for checking and sanitizing each teat before hooking the milking machine to a cow. He can have up to 12 cows being milked at a time, and milks between 40-60 cows an hour.	Each cow has identifying ear tags stating the bull it came from and a number. Bull sperm is selected by catalog to produce the most desirable characteristics. Also, by carefully controlling the cow's feed, the milk maintains a more consistent flavor.

Q: Is your farm an ‘organic’ farm?

“No, those supposedly don’t use purchased fertilizer or herbicides, but there have been allowances where they might use ‘a little’ herbicide and fertilizer and be considered organic. A main thing with milk and meat production is to not misuse antibiotics. Antibiotics are needed when a cow is sick. We don’t use growth hormones, of course.”

Q: Is Posilac, or rBST, a drug?

“No. That’s one thing we have to make sure people understand. Recumbant bST, or Bovine somatotropin, a natural protein produced in the pituitary gland of all cattle, helps adult cows produce milk. Milk from cows receiving supplemental bST is unchanged and just as wholesome and nutritious as always. The level of bST remains the same, too. Posilac went through one of the most stringent USDA research projects ever done. People say, ‘Well, this slid through.’ No. People make things up, are loose with facts. bST keeps a higher level of production so we make a little more milk to hopefully stay in business. It’s not bad for the cow, not bad for the consumer, not bad period.”

Q: Do you compete with large ‘factory’ farms?

“No competition. They make up 1-2% of the dairy farms nationwide. Corporate or ‘factory’ farm is a term thrown on the news to vilify a segment of agriculture, used by a group with an agenda. By some, we’re considered big, by others a 4-H project. We’re small compared to some. Most run 60-90 cows per family, and appreciatively go up with the number of families. Because families hire someone doesn’t mean they are not a family farm.”

Q: Do you sell as much as you produce?

“Oh yeah. Especially in the northeast, we are near big metropolitan areas. It’s unfair because our price is determined on a nationwide basis. When it’s dictated by the price of cheese in Wisconsin, it’s nonsensical. With major metropolitan areas like Boston, NY City, and even Albany, Rochester, and Syracuse, it should be about supply and demand. It’s evolved, but not to where it should be.”

Q: Are there international concerns?

“Yes, particularly powdered milk and casein (milk protein). Isn’t that an amazingly easy bio-security situation? The powder is newer, it circumvents the tariff laws, slides in, floods our market, keeps the price to farmers down. Say ‘free market’, but it opens us up to being beholden to foreign entities. If we’re beholden for food, that’s scary.”

Q: Do you work with the 4-H Club and schools?

“I was in 4-H and it was great. It’s tailed off a little in the dairy end of things because there’s not many dairies here in the Town of New Scotland. We try to get kids in, but there’s not a lot of interest in dairy and agriculture. Boy Scouts were here the other day. A few classrooms visit. Holy Cross has a class here yearly. AgriMark and Cabot put together an ‘Ag in the Classroom’ series. I give kids cheese samples, pencils, ‘Got Milk’ stickers, washable tattoos, coloring books to get them interested. Few teachers do this. This education is uncommon.”

Q: How does our youth perceive farming?

“We’re driving the kids out because they see it’s such hard work with so little return. We just went through about 3 years of the worst prices comparable to what it was in the early 1960’s. The input costs certainly didn’t go back to the 60’s level. The kids see this, and they say, ‘God, do I want to do this?’ And parents are now saying ‘You don’t want to do this. Go be a lawyer, be a doctor, go be anything.’”

Q: How has ‘Mad Cow’ disease effected you?

“A mixed blessing. Both instances of Mad Cow have been Canadian originated, so we sealed the border to importing livestock. It helped. When the price of milk rose, the bigger farms would add 500 cows from Canada, flooding the market with more milk, dropping the price. Now the price is kept a little higher, more stable. Is it great? No. It’s a better price. We’re getting around $16 per hundred weight, whereas for the previous three years we were down around $11-12. Parity, being able to just cover your cost and pay bills, is around $14. We’re one of the few businesses told what our input costs are, as well as how much we’ll get paid for the product. As for Mad Cow, it’s never been an issue because we don’t mix blood meal into the feed. A lot of foreign places do, even though they claim they don’t. That has kept the border sealed. I recently heard that our agriculture industry lost over $3 billion because of public perception. That is the bad part.”

Q: Do you get subsidies from the government?

“There’s a perception out there that we are paid to not grow a crop, or not do this or that. Government payments are for emergencies. The government will help because of weather-related instances. A man told me, ‘All those subsidies and government monies going to farmers is welfare.’ I told him, ‘It is welfare-to you and me and everybody who goes to the store and pays the least amount for groceries than anyone in the world, and for the highest quality, too.’ I see the payments as aid during extreme times to possibly keep us in business. It keeps the grocery shelves full.”

Q: What should the world know about dairies?

“It’s a family situation with people who just want to produce a good product, are stewards of the land, take care of their animals to best produce, and they want to pay their bills. Not looking for sympathy or for the government to keep them in business-just looking for a fair price for an extremely good product. I want people to be better educated and aware. There’s more to the story than what’s on the news.”

Q: How is the county government involved?

“The county funds a good % of the needs of Cooperative Extension, a phenomenal organization that helps with input on new technologies, soil samples, programs, and with business plans.”

Q: How is the state government involved?

“Right to Farm laws lessen problems encountered with neighbors-like arbitration. The state also encourages farmers to be better environmentally.”

Q: What does the Farm Bureau do?

“It’s the legislative influence-take what the farmers need to their legislators. The Farm Bureau is immensely helpful. They lobby-they educate, they’re the voice of the farmers. They are the farmers.” LaGrange is a member, and said it’s not a ‘union’ because they don’t necessarily fight for high wages.

Q: You’re on the Planning Board and plan to run for Town Board. Is dairy farming an influence?

“I was approached for the Planning Board because they were looking for someone to represent agriculture. That’s very important because we are a rural community. We have a fine line between development and private property rights. This land and farm is our 401k, our retirement. If we come to the end of the line and we can’t be here anymore, should we be restricted on how our property is developed? Are we going to assign 4-acre lots because someone likes the way the open space looks? Appreciate private property rights, and also balance the community needs.”

Q: What is the trend with dairy farms?

“Decreasing yearly. Food will come from further away. We have a larger investment in housing than Arizona or California, so people say, ‘Let’s just have cows in California.’ Well, instead of a 2-day wait until milk is on the shelf, and you can’t get much fresher, it would be a one-week turnover.”

“Urban encroachment, too. People come for the ambience and then drive farms away. Price is the big thing. If you can’t make money to pay bills, eventually you can’t do it. Think back to the New Deal times-there was an intent to keep food cheap. Fine, and we’re not looking to make a million, but we are looking to pay our bills and live moderately. The business aspect is getting bigger, the lifestyle aspect smaller. It’s easier for me to work for the Town of New Scotland. Who wants to get up at 2:30 every morning? People don’t care as much.”

Q: What is the solution? What do you see?

“There shouldn’t be one hungry person in this country. U.S. agricultural products are generally superior. With all the government programs, over-abundance of food-and hungry people? I think we should restrict imports-not all, but a lot. Not be isolated, but keep enough to take care of ourselves, and then go from there. We’d also do better to keep prices above parity-that’s all farmers want, and it would bring the kids back in, keep things going.”

“It’s very hard to get help, too. Farming is harder work. To get people to want to do it when they can do something else, or not do anything else. We’ve developed a dependent society. Welfare-to-work has been a step in the right direction. Cooperative Extension has helped. Most people have the pride to support themselves and their family, but if they’re conditioned not to, through generations, it’s hard to reverse. Let’s make it simpler to make money-not so restricted. Some government environmental programs are coming that would cost farmers thousands of dollars. If we have to invest in that, we won’t be able to continue. There has to be government supplementation to help achieve what they want us to. It’s simple, but complicated.”

Q: What do you like least about farming?

“The unnecessary encumbrances, like neighbors complaining when we spread manure. This is generally around agriculture. We have a small window to get crops in. If we are there at 11:00 at night, noise and lights, I apologize, but it’s a necessity.”

Q: What’s the best part of being a dairy farmer?

“Oh! The diversity! There’s so much diversity in what farmers do that it’s exciting. It’s fun. But… if you’re constantly beat down by the other pressures, the unnecessary problems-then it’s hard.”

Statistics from the LaGrange Dairy Farm:
• Produce about 18,000 lbs of milk per day and over 6 millions lbs per year
  (1 pound = 1 pint)
• 250 milk cows, 250 young stock, 40 bulls for artificial insemination, and one live bull “to catch any missed”
• No licenses needed, but many governmental restrictions because, as the wholesaler, they have to get a good quality product to the processor/retailer.
• Takes about 1,000 acres of land for their feed needs.
• Corn and hay are the two primary forages.
• Cows live about 15 years or more.
• Cows start producing milk at about age two.
• A high-producing cow eats from 60 to over 100 lbs of food per day, depending on how big they are.
• A study by the International Journal of Obesity shows obese adults who include yogurt in a reduced-calorie diet lose 22% more weight, 61% more body fat and 81% more abdominal fat than those who eat little or no dairy (dairyherd.com).
• The latest National Milk Drug Residue Database report for fiscal 2004 shows the dairy industry has achieved its lowest level ever of milk samples testing positive for antibiotic residues, just 0.044%.
• As for pricing, how does a gallon of milk compare to other drinks like: Diet Snapple 16oz $1.29 = $10.32 per gallon; Lipton Ice Tea 16oz $1.19 = $9.52 per gallon; Evian water 9oz $1.49 = $21.19 per gallon for water?!
  (and the source is often unknown).

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