Cooperation Is Byword for ‘Old Dominion 9 Dairymen
BY JULIE GOCHENOUR
Virginia Correspondent
Statistics can’t tell you
everything.
Virginia’s dairy industry ranks a
modest 18th place in the nation
with 1,157 grade-A dairies and
about 500 manufacturing milk
producers. The state’s 158,000
dairy cows produce approximately
175 million pounds of milk per
month or 2.1 billion pounds per
year with DHIA herds averaging
16,117 pounds per cow annually.
Small potatoes compared to
Pennsylvania.
Nonetheless, Virginia is a
recognized leader among the dairy
states. For the past 15 years, the
genetic value of dairy cattle in the
state has been in the top 5 percent
of the country. The DHIA system
used to test milk for somatic cell
count was developed in Virginia
and first used by the state’s
dairymen. And Virginia dairy
farmers fill many national
positions in the industry, from
breed association and the DHIA to
the United Dairy Industry
Association.
But what the numbers don’t
reveal is the way this industry
operates. Behind the facts and
figures is a network of active
dairymen, milk marketing
cooperatives, support industries
and a state university (V.P.1.) that
consistently work together to
reach common goals. Their
medium, says Dr. John White, a 19-
year veteran of the Dairy Science
Dept, at V.P.1., Virginia’s land
grant university, is often the
Virginia State Dairymen’s
Association.
Formed in 1907, the association
has been “the united voice of
Virginia’s dairy farmers” for the
past 79 years. “There are very few
states that have a single operation
that’s non-financial - not profit
earning or doesn’t market
products,” White explains. “The
Virginia State Dairymen’s
Association simply serves as a
forum and inspiration to promote
the industry and things that need to
be done in the industry.”
Cooperation and coordination
among the different segments of
the industry have been the chief
results, White notes. “Even though
we have five different marketing
divisions in the state, an A.I.
cooperative and two or three
private companies, as well as
several feed cooperatives and
companies, all of those companies
- and producers - are represented
in the association. So when there
are differences on how something
should be done, there’s a forum to
work through those differences
and come forward with an industry
approach to the issue.”
This united approach has paid
off in a lot of ways, John Miller,
executive secretary and treasurer
of the association points out. Three
milk marketing cooperatives,
Dairymen, Inc., Maryland-
Virginia Milk Producers
Cooperative and Valley of Virginia
Cooperative Milk Producers
handle 98 percent of the grade A
milk produced in the state, and,
while genuine competition exists,
there is also a profitable degree of
genuine cooperation as well. Two
Block Elected To
MOLINE, HI. - John R. Block,
former U.S. secretary of
agriculture, was elected to the
board of directors of Deere &
Company at its May 28 board
meeting.
Block, who has farmed near
Gilson, 111., since 1960, served as
secretary of agriculture from 1981
until February of this year, when
he became president of the
National American Wholesale
Grocers’ Association, a trade
group representing wholesale
grocers and food service
distributors.
Block has been a strong ad-
of the co-ops, for example, share
an ice cream facility.
“Our co-ops work well together;
they don’t fight each other and that
is one of the things that makes
Virginia’s dairy industry unique,”
Miller adds. “Not only do we have
joint ventures between the
cooperatives like the Flavo-Rich
ice cream plant in Roanoke, but
D. 1., Valley of Virginia and
Maryland-Virginia appreciate and
respect each other’s ability. This
means they can work together and
coordinate the many programs in
milk marketing to the best ad
vantage of all producer mem
bers.”
Marketing is not the only area,
however, where this cooperation
exists. In 1972 the Dairymen’s
Association recognized the im
portance of education and
research to the health of the in
dustry and consequent short
comings at V.P.I. Accordingly, the
membership voted to establish a
set-aside program where $1.40
from every $l,OOO of milk sold
would go to this area. So far the
association has put more than $1.75
million into the Dairy Science and
other related departments at
V.P.I. Extension, research and
teaching have all benefited, as
have the dairy farmers supporting
the program.
“It’s made an unbelievable
difference,” Dr. White explains.
“It’s allowed us to attract faculty
here that would never have come if
we didn’t have that support. It’s
allowed us to assume a leadership
role in dairy science nationwide,”
he continues. “The other thing the
State Dairymen’s Association has
done by funding all of these dif
ferent ideas, approaches, opinions
and such is to lead the industry in
the state, the dairy farmers in the
state, to be the most progressive
anywhere.
“What I mean by that they tend
to be early adopters of new
technology; they tend to be leaders
in their field. For example, they
accepted the new genetic
technology in the early ‘7os very
early in the game and got ahead of
the rest of toe country. There are
many examples of that in toe dairy
industry in this state; not only
among toe dairy farmers, but in
the support industries also. It tends
to be a very progressive,
productive organization.”
Progressive and productive
means healthy. All three Virginia
cooperatives are involved in milk
marketing and processing, and,
according to economist Howard
McDowell, the state is not a deficit
production area as some believe.
Instead, large urban markets such
as Baltimore, Washington D.C.
and northern Virginia and toe
urban corridor from D.C. through
Richmond to Norfolk absorb much
of Virginia’s fluid milk and dairy
products. Excess production then
flows south into neighboring deficit
production states.
McDowell expects this pattern to
expand. “If you look at the
demographic trends, the southeast
has been growing in population at a
greater rate than the Northeast
and upper Midwest. In fact, it may
be that some of these places have
incurred negative growth. So if
Deere & Company
vocate of agricultural trade ex
pansion, and was instrumental in
the creation of the 1985 Farm Bill,
which began to move American
agriculture toward a more market
based orientation.
Block, 51, was born in Gilson
(near Galesburg) and earned a
bachelor of science degree at the
U.S. Military Academy at West
Point in 1957. He served as an
infantry officer in the U.S. Army
until 1960, when he returned to the
family farm.
He is married to the former Sue
Rathje; the Blocks have three
children.
’•V '
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Ji*
From production to marketing to research, the Virginia dairy industry works together,
points out John Miller, executive secretary-treasurer of the Virginia Dairymen's
Association.
these people are drinking a little
milk and eating a little cheese,
we’re closer to them.
“Transportation is still a factor
even though you’re talking about
manufactured products,” he
continues. “And I think that’s a
real plus for the industry in
Virginia where we have pretty
good production conditions. All
other things equal, with the
population moving into the
Southeast and lower Mid-Atlantic
region, you’d rather be a dairy
producer in Virginia than
Wisconsin. As far as Penn
sylvania’s concerned, there’s a lot
of milk there and of course it can
flow south too.”
Geographic location is a definite
advantage, John White agrees, but
it’s no guarantee. “If you’re an
unprogressive stick-in-the-mud
producer in this state in the dairy
industry, you’re going to be left in
the dust pretty soon,” he claims,
and Dairymen’s Association
figures support his statement. In
Julie Goehenour, Virginia Correspondent
It’s not surprising that Julie
Gochenour needs a calendar tn
keep track of her schedule.
In any given week the 30-
year-old ag writer from
Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley
may be found at 4-H and FFA
shows, questioning dairymen
for tips on controlling mastitis,
interviewing a farmer on his
all-grass program for beef
cattle or keeping up-to-date
with developments in the
rapidly expanding sheep in
dustry. In addition to these
duties, she has also joined the
staff of Lancaster Farming as
the newspaper’s Virginia
correspondent.
“You need three things to be a
good farm writer,” the
Shenandoah County native
explains. “A respect and un
derstanding of agriculture, a
good idea of what farmers want
to read about... and a pair of
boots. The last are especially
useful on farm visits in
January, February and
March,” she laughs. “I’ve
never been to a place yet where
there wasn’t mud or manure or
both!”
Gochenour grew up m the
Fort Valley, a small rural
community tucked inside the
Massanutten Mountain which
sits between the North and
South Forks of the Shenandoah
River. The family farm, like
the last five years, Virginia has
lost 50 to 60 herds of dairy animals
per year while cattle numbers
have remained much more stable
and milk production has actually
increased.
Economist Howard McDowell
explains why. “These are in
dividuals who are not in debt, who
have good management and
production capability and are in
position to retain earnings at a
high enough rate to be equal to
increased productivity com
petitively. It’s even more than not
being in debt; they’ve got to be
good enough to keep up with the
best because prices are falling. So
for the good producers, the very
efficient, there’s a future. And they
see that.”
In response to these pressures,
Virginia producers are getting
larger and average herd size in the
state is nearing 100 head, with
rolling herd averages on the in
crease also. Most dairy farms in
the state are family operations
most in the area, was a
diversified operation with
everything from apple trees,
small grain, corn and chickens
to cattle and hogs. She was a
member of the Fort Valley 4-H
and grew up “not knowing how
lucky I was to live on a farm. It
was just something I took for
granted.”
Until she went away to
college.
After graduation from
Longwood College in •(ap
propriately enough) Farmville,
Va., she headed home. “I
couldn’t wait to get back to the
valley,” Julie confesses. “It
was the only place I wanted to
-be.”
Soon after that, she met Gary
Gochenour, whose ties to the
vaHey were as strong as her
own, and later married him.
The couple moved 18 miles
across the mountain to his home
in Maurertown, just west of
Woodstock.
Today she is a full-time
agricultural reporter covering
the Shenandoah Valley from
Winchester to Staunton, one of
Virginia’s strongest farming
regions. It also requires her to
be familiar with the entire
range of fanning activities
from dairying and beef cattle to
confinement poultry operations
and everything in between.
“And I’m still leamirtg,”
* j|
which, even though incorporated,
are still a family unit. They are all
becoming more efficient as the
price of milk has dropped $1.20 to
$1.30 in the last two years.
“Our dairymen who are going to
stay in business have had to do so
with less income from milk, with
less profit potential with the milk
that’s being sold,” John Miller
notes. “So there’s had to be a lot of
evaluating where they can cut cost
and become more efficient.”
The same holds true for all
aspects of the industry, V.P.l.’s
John White explains. Efficiency is
the key. “A lot of people waste a lot
of energy fussing with each other.
In this state we don’t waste that
much energy fussing. Instead we
use the energy to do a better
job...and the producers see this.
It’s a contagious kind of thing,
really, and I think that’s the reason
you have statewide cooperation in
Virginia’s dairy industry,” he
concludes. “Success leads to all
kinds of cooperation. ’ ’
Julie Gochenour
she’s quick to add. “Every time
you listen to a farmer, you learn
something new. If you want a
good, workable solution to a
problem, ask a farmer. Lots of
times they’re smarter than the
experts.”
Besides criss-crossing the
valley to keep up with farm
news, Julie also regularly helps
her father-in-law, Carroll
Gochenour, on his 300-plus acre
beef and hay operation. She has
done advertising and public
relations work for both farm
products and non-profit
organizations and occasionally
contributes a column on far
ming to the local newspaper.