One common challenge that pretty much every dairy producer from coast to coast can comment on is labor challenges. While labor shortages are no longer a stark headline, they certainly continue to be a headache dairy farms are faced with. Recently three dairy producers talked about labor challenges during a Farm Journal Farm County Update webinar.
In New York, Tyler Reynolds, part owner of Reyncrest Farms, shares that a big change for his dairy is managing New York’s overtime law.
“So far, we haven’t really changed anything on [scheduling] because our guys really want 65 to 70 hours a week,” he says.
Reynolds milks 1,400 cows and farms 2,700 acres alongside his family near Buffalo. He shares that cutting employees’ hours back to keep them under the 40-hour threshold doesn’t spell success for his dairy.
“I truly believe if I tie hours back, I’m going to lose some of my best guys because they’ll most likely go to other states that allow for as many hours as they can get,” he says.
Reynolds states that at some point management changes will have to be made on his dairy regarding labor to figure out how to best manage the new overtime ruling.
Currently, Reyncrest provides housing for all their employees.
“We can’t just hire another shift. Then I need more housing. Right now, everything kind of hums along and guys are happy. Everything gets done. We’re as efficient as we can be at this point. But when I need to make that next step, that’s going to change a lot of things. Not only just weekly cost of employees, but bigger picture kind of things,” Reynolds says. “My biggest fear is that we lose the best people that we can get.”
Reynolds shares that year-over-year labor costs on his farm have risen by 25-30%.
“I don’t like to think of any of these guys as minimum wage employees,” he says. “Our minimum wage is $13.20, but we don’t take anything off for housing. So, all of a sudden, these guys are $15 to $16 employees.”
Out west in California, Melvin Medeiros with Medeiros Holsteins in Layton, has similar challenges to Reynolds. Medeiros milks 1,600 cows and farms 500 acres alongside his wife and sons in California’s San Joaquin Valley and shares that California has had overtime rules for agriculture for quite some time.
“The following year we’re going to 40-hours and we have the same challenges with our employees. Our minimum wage is $15, and we’ve got employees that are saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got to make more money,’” he says.
Medeiros says his whole attitude must change, especially when the 40-hour overtime rule becomes law. He shares that he needs to loosen up on protocols that he used to be strict with. From giving colostrum to moving cows to feeding, efficiency will be the name of the game going forward.
“I’ll give you an example,” Medeiros shares. “We feed our dry cows and our heifers once a day. And we were doing it during the morning shift, and we figured out that we have to do it during the afternoon shift. Our guy is 15 minutes faster because he wants to get home at night.”
The California dairyman says the quality of labor is tough and he doesn’t have a magic wand to fix it.
“I do know when legislation gets involved, it turns it into a mess. We’re in that mess now and trying to figure it out and how do we invest in this farm to make it more efficient and cut back on labor,” he asks.
Wisconsin dairy producer, Jordan Mathews, a partner at Rosy-Lane Holsteins, says his farm is pretty lucky when it comes to labor.
“We’ve had a little bit of turnover, more than normal, but about three years ago we kind of changed how we approach labor and changed from waiting until someone shows up looking for a job to constant recruiting,” he says. “So, we always try to have someone in that pipeline waiting to get that call to work at Rosy-Lane.”
Rosy-Lane milks 1,550 cows at one of two locations—the home farm in Watertown, and a newly purchased second farm in Paoli. Earlier this year, Lloyd and Daphne Holterman began the retirement process, and both Mathews and Tim Strobel continue to purchase the business from them, as well as run the day-to-day operations.
Mathews shares that some employees chase money, and not the quality of the environment that Rosy-Lane can provide.
“I think we’re comfortable with them leaving because I don’t think those people are happy no matter where they are at,” he says.
To listen to the entire conversation with these three producers talk more about issues and challenges they faced in 2022 and how they’re planning for the year ahead, click on Farm Country Update - Farm Journal
