Drought, heat throwing challenge at dairy industry

By M.P. TAYLOR
AFP Correspondent

FREDERICK, Md. — The thunder has taunted Maryland dairy farmers all summer, promising to break the fierce heat and bring rain to their thirsty crops, but leaving nothing.
By the time a storm moved through some of Maryland’s northern counties Aug. 12, most of the damage had been done.
“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it. For everything,” said Washington County dairy farmer Mike Forsythe who has seen his 150 cow herd’s milk production fall off by 10 pounds per cow per day in the heat.
“Things went pretty well until mid-July when we had all those hot nights. We never recovered from that,” he added.
June was hot, July hotter still with daily temperatures well into the 90s and night time temperatures that rarely fell to 70.
Seventy acres of corn are “drying up out there in the field” and a third hay cutting is “hardly worth doing. It looks terrible now,” Forsythe said.
It’s a summer when economies of scale can make all the difference for milk production.
While Forsythe depends on a small wooded area that serves as an adequate cooling station for his cows most summers, Jimmy Stup invested in a new facility with fans and a sprinkler system for his 1,000 cow herd in 2001.
That’s when he doubled the size of his herd to boost production enough to pay for the new facility. “I felt like a snowball going down hill,” he recalled, adding that he doesn’t plan to expand the operation further.
Frederick County farmer Robert Ramsburg said his milk production is “down some” despite his sprinkler system in the barn and he expects the heat and drought to cut his corn crop by half.
Last year’s record snowfalls followed by a summer of drought and record heat “smacked us real hard,” he said.
On the Eastern Shore, Ridgely, Md., dairyman Scott Youse, who is president of the Maryland Dairy Industry Association, said his cows are “hanging on” in a fairly new barn equipped with fans and misters. But milk production is down an estimated five pounds per cow per day to 70 pounds and breeding “has really sloughed off.”
Like the other dairy farmers interviewed, Youse is unsure of the impact the weather will have on his bottom line. “What’s frustrating is we’re not seeing the milk price move like it should,” he said. “The price goes up slowly but, if anything happens, it drops so fast.”
Youse said his corn crop is in good shape because he irrigates, a necessity for many crops grown in the sandy soils of Caroline County. His hay crop, on the other hand, is now “dismal” after a good first cutting. The second cutting, he said, “just sat there; it never grew.”
Stup said there is no way of knowing whether the mister’s added electricity costs will be balanced by gains in income from his milk. “It’s a hard thing to put a figure on,” he said. “How much would production drop off if I hadn’t done it?”
This year, based on milk prices in the $16 to $17 per hundredweight range, he said he expects to “about break even.”
“I can’t make any money if the milk price drops and it can go backwards really fast,” he said.
Maybe, Ramsburg said, he will break even this year, “but I don’t know that.”
The 66-year-old Ramsburg said he feels beaten down by the harsh winter and unforgiving summer. “I’m usually very optimistic and upbeat, but I’m finding it very difficult,” he said. “I just hold on to hope that we could still get a few showers.”
“I’m pushing 50 years old and I think you mind it more at that age,” said Stup. “It’s just day after day and it wears you down.”
Youth doesn’t seem to be much help in a summer like this one. “I’m only 38 and it’s rough,” said Youse. “There’s only so much you can do when it gets this hot.”
He tries to get as much work done as he can after the sun goes down and, he added, “I’m ready for snow again.”