What a small dairy actually costs to run

In August I asked readers who farm to send me their numbers, anonymously, if they were willing. One of them, a family who milk sixty cows on a hillside farm, sent everything: twelve months of costs, line by line, with notes in the margin. With their permission, here it is, rounded to the nearest hundred dollars.

• Feed and forage: $61,400, the largest line by far, and the one that moves most with the weather.
• Vet, medicine and breeding: $14,800.
• Labour: $38,000, for one part-time worker. The family's own hours are not on the sheet.
• Fuel, power and water: $17,200.
• Machinery, repairs and contractors: $22,600.
• Rent, rates, insurance and loan repayments: $29,300.

Against that, the herd sold just over 480,000 litres of milk, at an average of 42 cents a litre, plus calves and a few cull cows. In a good year, the margin left for the family is about the same as one modest salary. In a bad year, it is negative, and they make it up from savings or borrowing.

“The family's own hours are not on the sheet.”

The note in the margin that stayed with me was next to the labour line. It said simply: “Us: about 140 hours a week between three of us. Not counted.” If you priced those hours at even a modest wage, the farm would not, on paper, make money in any of the last five years.

I'm not publishing this to make anyone feel guilty about the price of milk. I'm publishing it because numbers like these are almost never shared, and without them it's impossible to have an honest conversation about what food should cost. Members have follow-up questions in the community; I'll collect the answers in a later post.