SEATTLE -- After 70-some years and four generations of milking cows in Washington’s Snohomish Valley, the Bartelheimers were the latest in a long list of dairy families who have called it quits. But the long, low barns had been empty for less than a week last month when the cows came home again.
Today, the dairy is in operation as one of four rented locations Jeremy and Jerald Visser are using to expand their herd.
The Bartelheimers sold off 750 mature cows, some to the Vissers, and leased the dairy to the family. As a result, the Bartelheimers paid off debt and made their mortgage payments, and owner Dale Bartelheimer, 73, was able to retire.
It’s tough to make a living in the dairy business these days, but those who find economical ways to grow have a better chance of surviving, said Ned Zaugg, Washington State University Extension’s dairy expert.
The Vissers -- son Jeremy and father Jerald -- believe the arrangement will be beneficial by giving them a place to expand their herd (and therefore potential profit) without the costs of land ownership.
Most Washington dairies are family-operated, a number of them by people such as the Bartelheimers and Vissers who have been in the business for generations.
But the high cost of feed and the low price of milk mean the family-owned dairy is a dying breed.
When Zaugg came to the Northwest in 1993, Snohomish and Skagit counties each had more than 100 dairies. Strict state environmental rules were implemented in 1997. Now, there are about 25 in each, he said.
“It is a crisis,” he said.
Dairy farms also affect nearby towns, he said. Depending on the economy, every 100 cows represent $1 million to $2 million in income to surrounding communities, Zaugg said. Towns near a dairy often are small and have benefited from the dairy families’ involvement for years.
“These people are the salt of the earth,” he said. “They work hard; they don’t complain about it. They appreciate natural resources because that’s their livelihood. These are the communities where they raise their children.”
The Visser family came from the Netherlands in the early 1900s and settled on the farm in Sumas, Wash., where Jeremy Visser, 33, lives today with his wife and 2-year-old son.
In 1999, the dairy was about to go under. That’s when Jeremy went into partnership with his father, Jerald, and made an ambitious plan to expand their operation.
They began leasing other properties -- one in Whatcom County and now two in Snohomish -- and expanded the herd from 140 to 3,000 today.
With a bigger herd comes increased responsibilities and risks, Visser said: “I can’t afford to make mistakes.”
He also has a far more sober view of dairying than he did 11 years ago when he jumped into the business, full of optimism.
The year 2009 was the worst for the dairy industry, he said.
That’s when milk prices dropped to their lowest, $11.76 for about 12 gallons, while the price of feed remained high. Local dairies were paid $14.20 for the same amount of milk in 2005, and the rate today is about $15, Visser said.
Feed prices are high for several reasons. Prime locally grown hay is shipped to lucrative markets overseas -- Saudi Arabia, for example, Bartelheimer said. That makes available hay more expensive.
Alfalfa, corn and soybeans are all part of a cow’s diet, and corn prices are high now, too, Visser said, because it’s in demand for ethanol.
“Unfortunately for a lot of agriculture, when one does well, another pays the penalty,” Zaugg said. “No man is an island when it comes to this picture.”
The Bartelheimers, who came from Germany in the early 1900s and moved to Snohomish after a stop in Nebraska, wouldn’t have been able to stay on the land had a tenant not been found, said Jason Bartelheimer, 39.
“For the last two years, we’ve been losing money,” he said. “The dairy economy went with the rest of the economy.”
Jason Bartelheimer can’t remember wanting to be anything but a dairyman. While attending the University of Washington, he skipped so many classes to work on the farm that he eventually left college.
When he married, he brought his wife to the farm, and they’re raising their four children in the same way he was raised, being welcome in the barn “as soon as you’re old enough to push a wheelbarrow.”
Bartelheimer is doing what many dairymen are doing in order to stay on their farms: He’s planning to make farmsteadcheese, and he bought 42 calves from the herd his father sold. He’s taken cheese-making classes and practiced in the farmhouse kitchen.
Bartelheimer says he knows it will take time to make money in the cheese business and that he’ll have to find another job in the interim.
His friends jokingly tell him he needs a night job to support his “farming habit.”
That’s a passion Visser understands. He, too, left college to return to the dairy. He doubts his children (the second is due next month) will be the fifth generation in the dairy business.
“They’ll find smarter ways of making money,” he said. “But it’s a wonderful lifestyle for families.”
