A new report from USDA shows dairy farms have consolidated at a faster rate than any other ag sector.

“We see consolidation throughout almost all of U.S. agriculture, but dairy is really at the extreme.”

Jim MacDonald with the Economic Research Service tells Brownfield 30 years ago half of the nation’s dairy cows were on farms with 80 or fewer cows, today that number has grown to 1,300.

“We see a little bit of that in some other livestock businesses like eggs or hogs, but that’s just really striking and much more powerful and much more of a rapid shift than we see anywhere in crop production.”

For the past 30 years he says there’s been a long-term trend toward larger dairy farms because of the cost advantages.

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