Massachusetts Association of Dairy Farmers

Farmers

• Days cows are milked: 365 days per year
• Average operator hours worked: 90 per week
• Average work day: 13.8 hours
• Number of days worked: 6.5 per week
• Owner hourly wage rate: $3.65 per hour
• Vacation days: few to none
• Holidays: few to none
• Sick leave: none

Farms

• Family owned dairy farms: 189
• Acres farmed by dairy farmers in Massachusetts: 113,600
• Average herd size: 67 cows
• Average number of acres operation: 349 acres
• Ratio of Massachusetts local revenues to expenditures, farmland: 1:0.25 to 1:072
• Ratio of Massachusetts local revenues to expenditures, residential land: 1:1.02 to 1:1.16

Milk Production

• Total annual production: 38 million gallons
• Cost of production: $18.00 per cwt *
• Average price paid to farmers: $13.88 per cwt **
• Cost of transporting milk within the region (200 miles), per gallon: 10¢
• Cost of transporting milk from Michigan or Wisconsin, per gallon: 43-55¢
• New England dairy farms under moderate to severe financial stress: 54 percent.
• Fluid milk consumed here that comes from New England or New York: nearly 100 percent
• Share of farm price decrease passed along to consumers by processors and retailers, 1981-1997: none
• Consumers served by an average Massachusetts dairy farm: 6,000 per year

Sources: Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture Division of Dairy Services, New England Agricultural Statistics Service, Farm Credit Bank of Springfield, USDA Farm Service Agency and USDA Economic Research Service.

* per hundred pounds of milk ** average 1990-1996