It's a constant economic tread mill. The dairies that remain have to always be looking at ways to become more efficient so they can survive the next round,'' said Healdsburg dairy rancher John Bucher, a director and past president of Sonoma County Farm Bureau. It's now commonplace for dairy farmers to compare what's happening with their industry to the shake-out and consolidation in the Sonoma County poultry industry during the '40s and early '50s. Fifty years ago there were thousands of poultry farms in Sonoma County.
Today there are a dozen big poultry ranches.
Bucher points out that consolidation in the dairy industry has been occurring for decades. In the '40s there were nearly 2,000 dairy farms in Sonoma County, with some milking as few as 20 cows. Today there are 102 dairies in the county, with the larger dairies milking nearly 1,000 cows. Sonoma County's average milking herd is 350 cows. But Bucher said the move to larger and bigger dairy farms is being accelerated by federal farm legislation, approved last year, that phases out dairy price supports so that milk is sold on the free market with no federal safety net.