Michael Oosten at his family’s dairy farm in Lakeview, an unincorporated area of Riverside County. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)
After moving to California in the 1920s, the grandparents of Michael Oosten started their own dairy farm in Paramount in 1945 before shifting to larger farms in Artesia and Bellflower. The grandparents were Dutch dairy farmers.
They relocated their farm to Chino in the early 1970s, but in 2001 they made the decision to sell it to a trucking firm adjacent to an Amazon warehouse that had been constructed on the site of two previous dairy farms.
Dairy farming has decreased in California since the industry’s high in 2008, according to Oosten, who has operated Marvo Holsteins for 18 years. Marvo Holsteins is a dairy farm in the unincorporated community of Lakeview in Riverside County that provides milk to Land O’Lakes. The industry has suffered from declining real estate in Southern California, more affordable land in other states, stringent permitting procedures, a lack of water and other natural resources, and more expensive land in other states.
According to Oosten, the main reason why farmers leave their home states is economics. The cost of feed is cheaper and the regulatory environment is better in other states, where milk prices are often highly competitive.
He said that real estate in particular has had a big impact on the decision of more dairies to leave California.
Michael Oosten strolls through barren terrain while standing beside a corral with cows.
“Developers would come in and acquire the property and turn it into houses or commercial structures,” he added, “when urban sprawl pushed in and got near to the farm.” “That is the development of what has occurred in the dairy business in California. Many individuals have begun to relocate out of state more lately, during the last 20 years.
According to Michael Boccadoro, executive director of sustainability organization Dairy Cares, there are only around 1,200 dairies remaining in California, a considerable decrease from the 2,100 farms there were in 2001 and the 20,000 farms there were in 1950. One of these dairies is Marvo Holsteins.
Although there are now 94% less dairies in the state than there were 70 years ago, producers have been able to make up the difference by producing more milk and improving cow comfort and breeding, according to Boccadoro.
It’s “a nonstarter” to establish more dairies or increase output in California, he said. “It’s been six or seven years since we constructed a new dairy. Simply said, it’s not an ideal location to start a milk manufacturing firm.
According to Boccadoro, the number of dairy cows in the state has decreased from 1.88 million in 2008 to 1.72 million now, or by around 160,000 cows in 14 years. Every year, the number of cows in the state drops by between 0.5% and 1%.
Dairy cows are being sent to areas like Texas, South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, and Kansas that are not normally recognized for their dairy production in instead of remaining in California. According to Boccadoro, milk production has been moved to the Midwestern states as a result of a decline in the demand for fluid milk and a rise in the demand for cheese, yogurt, butter, whey protein, and other milk-related products. Since the pandemic started in 2020, demand for dairy products has grown by 2000%.
After being milked, cows at the dairy farm owned by Marvo Holsteins go through a cooling shower.
There was a lot of milk production on the West Coast and the East Coast historically because cows needed to be near to the market since it was a fresh milk market and milk has a limited shelf life of around two weeks, according to him. The extended shelf lives of the new products are causing milk production in the dairy industry to shift to the country’s centre regions.
Cows have being pushed out of California due to closer proximity to new industrial facilities. The Hilmar Cheese Co. has a factory in Texas and is now building a cheese and whey production facility in Kansas. Another significant dairy production business, Leprino Foods, said last autumn that it was constructing a new plant in Lubbock, Texas.
The prospect of climate change rules and their potential consequences is another major concern dairy producers have.
The Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Act of 2016, or SB 1383, was approved by the California legislature and established a 2030 target to cut methane emissions from the dairy and cattle sectors by 40% below 2013 levels, or around 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. The California Air Resources Board may begin enforcing measures to curb emissions if it deems in 2024 that the dairy sector is not on pace to meet its goal.
According to Oosten, future laws may call for dairies to construct anaerobic digesters, which regulate the breakdown of waste and turn methane into clean energy, as well as the use of feed additives to lessen the amount of methane that cows belch forth.
There is a concern in California that if mandates and rules are implemented, we will begin to lose financing for incentive programs, our alternatives, and farms, he added. Some of them may cease operations, which would be a disgrace for that family. The second thing that will happen is that they will pack up, depart, and go outside of the state. The ‘leakage,’ as we discussed, still occurs even if they are not subject to the [mandates] over there.
More dairy farmers remaining in California would benefit the state from a global climate viewpoint, according to Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairies, a trade association that represents the bulk of milk produced in California.
She said that since California exports gas to other regions, processing and manufacturing—which was the state’s cash source for producing eco-friendly goods—are now departing the state. It was intended to be a reward system, but if we don’t produce them in California, they will undoubtedly be produced somewhere.
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reported in August on worries from the dairy business over the air regulations.
However, David Clegern, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, said that because no environmental laws are even permitted to be submitted for approval until 2024, they have no effect on the migration of cows from California.
There could be more of a market push there since cattle prices are really high right now and increased significantly this summer, according to Clegerns.
According to Clegern, staff members are in the early phases of creating a rule on methane emissions via consultation with neighbourhood residents and working groups.
He added, “We won’t start until we have a real regulation. “The public procedures, legislation, and other regulatory testing take a few years to complete. We need to confirm that it won’t conflict with federal rules, that it makes sense scientifically, and that it can be accomplished in a practical and affordable manner.
The Coalition for Clean Air’s Bill Magavern, director of policy, stressed the significance of lowering methane, a short-lived climate pollutant with an atmospheric half-life of 12 years and an 80-fold greater warming impact than carbon dioxide.
“These massive factory farm operations have significant local environmental implications in addition to the climate change impact, including the methane itself that leads to smog, which is currently far beyond permissible levels in the San Joaquin Valley,” he said. California’s dairy sector is located in the South Coast Air Basin and the San Joaquin Valley Air District, which have the worst air quality in the nation.
Magavern doubted that possible laws would drive cows out of the state.
He spoke to dairy farms, saying, “I have seen them lobby over the past 20 years and resist any legislation that would get them to lessen the pollution they’re releasing in California.” They are putting up a fight against everything, and the fact that they are now whining about not even being regulated is telling.
a close-up of cow legs and the udders of a cow being milked by a machine.
The dairy and cattle industry, which is responsible for more than half of the state’s methane emissions, has decreased its yearly emissions by slightly over half, according to a study by the California Air Resources Board published this spring. To attain the 2030 target, dairy producers will need to keep altering their waste management practices, reduce the number of their cows, and use digesters.
However, not everyone loves the dairy digesters. According to Genevieve Amsalem, the Central California Environmental Justice Network’s head of research and policy, dairy farms are responsible for 50% of the San Joaquin Valley’s particulate matter pollution. She said that the digesters are producing ammonia, which harms the environment and the general public’s health.
By putting in a dairy digester, she said, “you’re using state money to institutionalize this activity and make it law.” The fact that the state is institutionalizing these environmental disasters raises serious concerns.
Oosten stated his farms use less water since they put their cows outdoors and that he is in negotiations with digester businesses about installing them despite the digesters’ high cost (it costs roughly $6 million to construct one at a 2,000-cow farm). The state’s Dairy Digester Research & Development Program pays a part of the cost of a digester while dairy producers pay the remaining balance as one of the incentives for lowering methane emissions.
According to Oosten, despite the consolidation of his family’s farms over the years, his farms sell between 30% and 35% of their milking herd, which consists of roughly 2,500 cows, for beef each year.
He said, “We’re not expelling animals from the state merely to get rid of them. It is centred on economics and is implemented in areas where dairies are most lucrative.
