Dairy Farms: A Rich History on the Olympic Peninsula

We drink milk, because it tastes great. We use it in the morning with our cereal. We use it to make French toast, butter milk biscuits, clam chowder, and even to dunk Oreo cookies. We use dairy products in a hundred ways throughout the week, and some of the time we don’t even realize we are consuming food with dairy products. Dairy products are a vital part of the American diet.

Like many good things in life, most of us take our dairy products for granted. All the milk, butter, cream, and yogurt we need come off shelves at Safeway or Alberton’s. We rarely pause to consider the source. Behold, our source of all good things is the great American dairy farm.

The Olympic Peninsula has a rich history of dairy farming. In 1899 Washington dairies were major milk producers. In that same year, the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company produced 40,000 pounds of the first condensed milk, called “Carnation Sterilized Cream.” Carnation Sterilized Cream became so well known, the company changed its name to Carnation Milk Company.

This rich dairy history is fading into the past as dairy farms go out of business. In 1920 there were 6,588 milk cows in Clallam County. By 1950, which was the peak year for milk cows in the County, there were 7,306. By 1969 there were only 2,333, and at the end of 2007 there are estimated to be only 500 milking cows on the two remaining commercial dairy farms. There are some milk cows on family farms, but these do not produce milk on a commercial level.

The cost of operating dairy farms has continued to increase, because of the increasing costs of equipment, supplies, fuel, electricity, and labor. Environmental concerns and government regulations have substantially increased the burden and cost of operations, too. Meanwhile the price of milk has not kept pace with costs, and the opportunity cost of keeping a dairy farm has increased as the value of real estate has increased.

While the rising costs of operating a dairy farm have pinched profits for the small dairy operation, the price of real estate has been on a steady climb for decades in Sequim and Port Angeles. As the need for housing increases, developing farm land for residential subdivisions becomes more profitable than farming it. Seven years ago the average price of a new home in Sequim was just above $150,000, and now it is about twice that at a little over $300,000. [Source: SequimRealEstateNews.com]

There’s is a new way for a farmer to profit from higher real estate values and keep his farm by selling a conservation easement. This lets him keep his farm and either not farm at all, or maintain its existing agricultural use permanently. Two local dairy farmers have sold conservation easements to keep acreage in permanent agricultural status.

According to the Washington Dairy Federation, in 1982 there were 20 dairy farms in Clallam and Jefferson Counties. By 1992, we had lost six, and at the end of 2007 we have only two left in Clallam County, both in Sequim. Port Angeles no longer has any commercial dairy farms. Of the two left in Sequim, one is a small organic operation operated by Jeff and Debbie Brown on Towne Road in Sequim, and the other diary farm is Maple View Farm, owned and operated by the Smith family for three generations.

I had the privilege of touring the Maple View dairy with manager Ben Smith to learn where all that milk comes from. While I have never won anything, I did get lucky while I was roaming the dairy farm with my camera. A cow delivered a calf, and I caught it all on film. Fortunately, I witnessed the delivery of my own four children and even cut some umbilical cords, so I didn’t get queasy during the birth of a wet black calf.

What struck me most about the Smith dairy was the incredible detail and work involved in the management of each individual cow, calf and bull. Every cow has her entire history from birth in a computer database that tracks milk production, age and offspring, and health and medical records. There is more medical information on the average dairy cow with a milking life of five years in this database than there is in the average person’s medical file.

The Smith dairy has a total of 1,000 cows, calves, and bulls. The dairy is the size of a typical family dairy with 350 milking cows. It takes three shifts back to back to milk all 350, and the show never stops. Cows are milked 18 at a time for 12 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There are no exceptions, because the cows must be milked. There is no such thing as a day off at a dairy farm.

Cows are impregnated on a regular schedule, and every detail is kept in the database. Breeding is a science and carefully managed for maximum milk production. The best producers are Holsteins, although Jerseys are also good milk cows. A typical month at the Smith dairy will see the birth of 45 calves. Scott Kearsley has worked at dairy farms for seven years and at the Smith dairy for five. In that time he has delivered hundreds of calves. While Scott doesn’t think of himself as a male midwife, he does often have to assist in the delivery, especially if the head or hooves are stuck, or the calf is in a breach position.

For years a significant number of calves died early from pneumonia or viruses, but now the calves are separated from the mother after an hour and placed in a germ free igloo and fed well as they get through the critical early stages of life. This has reduced the mortality rate to almost zero.

The average cow produces 10 gallons of milk every day with top producers making as much as 25 gallons. How do they produce so much milk? A cow drinks 45 gallons of water and eats 100 pounds of grains every day. The grains are mixed in precise proportions, and the nutritional plan includes high quality vitamins and minerals. Every cow’s and bull’s health is monitored and recorded from birth.

Ben Smith is the third generation in his family to operate the dairy farm. It all started in 1937 when his grandparents moved to the Sequim area from Germany and started Maple View Farms. Over the years they expanded and purchased more farmland to support the dairy, but rising land values and rising costs have been a challenge. Ben explains that he felt it was important to begin to diversify their business income, which they have done with their own construction company and their latest business, a coffee shop in Sequim.

While dairy farms have been gradually disappearing around Washington, it is a good bet that the two Sequim dairy farms will be around for the foreseeable future. Not only are these farms important employers in our local economy, they also provide a valuable product. Beyond the economics and the nutrition, these dairy farms are an important part of our rich and creamy history. Drink milk, because “it does a body good.”