Few dairy farms remain in SBC
Forty years ago there was a time when San Benito County had an
abundance of dairy farms. In fact, one local historian said that
one couldn’t travel in any direction from Hollister without
encountering a dairy. Yet today, only three remaining dairies exist
and one of those is on its way out of the business.
Few dairy farms remain in SBC
Forty years ago there was a time when San Benito County had an abundance of dairy farms. In fact, one local historian said that one couldn’t travel in any direction from Hollister without encountering a dairy. Yet today, only three remaining dairies exist and one of those is on its way out of the business.
The owners of the Pereira dairy recently sold off the majority of their cows, nearly 200, to dairymen out of the area. The family dairy was started more than 20 years ago and spanned three generations of the family, but the dairy business was a different industry when they started.
“The milk prices we’re getting now are the same as they were in 1978, but the costs of operating the dairy are not the same. That makes it hard,” Lea Pereira said. “It takes fuel to operate the equipment and that’s gone up and the cost of grain has gone up. The costs are extremely high and the prices are extremely low.”
Pereira, 23, was the driving force that pushed her family to continue the business for one more year last year after she graduated from California State University, Fresno with a bachelor’s degree in animal science. She was ready to go into the master’s program but decided to take a year off and see if she couldn’t turn the family dairy around.
The problem is that most of the milk production in California is happening in the Central Valley and milk producers have to ship their product farther and pay larger hauling costs, according to Pereira. Additionally, since most of the industry is two hours away, the businesses connected to the industry, such as equipment repair companies are also located there.
If a piece of equipment at the Pereira dairy breaks, a specialist has to drive two hours to repair that equipment.
Ray Lanini was also in the dairy business for 25 years before health problems forced him to get out in the 1990s. But he said that it was probably a blessing in disguise since the dairy business is getting difficult to succeed in.
Some of the mega-dairies have 2,000 to 3,000 cows and milk 24-hours-a-day. It’s pretty hard to compete with that, Lanini said.
“Milk prices are also way down and the price of feed is way up,” Lanini said.
Lanini remembered long days filled with hard work, where he would typically go to bed at 9 p.m. and wake up at 3 a.m. He was lucky if he got one day off per week, but he enjoyed what he did and didn’t often dwell on the negatives.
Unfortunately, as Pereira sees it, the family dairy business is a dying industry. The days of family dairies are coming to an end, due to the large commercial farms such as the ones Lanini described.
“At our peak we were shipping 1,900 gallons of milk per day, but now that we’ve sold off the herd I think we’re doing maybe 300 gallons,” Pereira said. “It’s getting rough in San Benito County.”
Smaller boutique dairies may be one of the solutions for keeping milk and milk-related products local.
Though there is no application on file with the county, County Planning Developer Byron Turner said that discussions have taken place between the county and dairy operators for Clara Vale farm to locate a boutique dairy in the South County area of San Benito County.
A boutique dairy can specialize in a specific type of milk or cheese and sell directly to markets.
Pereira isn’t entirely sure what the family will do now that they have sold off their herd. The family still has 40 milk cows that weren’t good enough for sale so they will finish milking them and they still have a young stock of 200 head of cattle that will also likely be sold off.
Pereira’s grandfather, Robert, will likely retire, her father, Tim, has taken another job and Lea has a scholarship to go back to school and get a master’s degree in animal science and dairy nutrition.
“We liked it,” Pereira said. “It was what we know and what we did, but it is a dying industry.”
Patrick O’Donnell can be reached at [email protected].
