CITRUS COUNTY, Fla. — The Florida dairy industry is seeing major impacts from the coronavirus pandemic, causing some farmers to dump milk due to a lack of demand.
- School lunch programs helping to keep farms running
- Department of Agriculture pushing for end to purchase limits to help farmers
- More Citrus County stories
Dale McClellan, President of M&B Products, owns a dairy farm in Citrus County as well as a packaging plant in Temple Terrace.
He says production is down.
“We are only packaging at 58 percent of normal right now," McClellan explained. "We are very grateful for 58 percent because we really thought we were going to be zero and we were almost zero."
He went on to say school lunch programs have kept them afloat, but at the milk farm, where milk is sent all around the state, they have had to dump milk because of a lack of demand with so many businesses closed and some grocery stores limiting purchases.
“If milk is dumped in Okeechobee or right here we lose the same amount of money because the Florida farmers work together on that," McClellan said. "But in some instances, if they don’t have a place right now they would call our farm and say, 'can you dump one of those loads?' and that’s how that occurred.”
McClellan did say the warmer weather will help, since cows typically don’t eat as much and as a result don’t produce as much milk. He’s also adjusting the way he feeds his cows.
“You can change the feed rationing to a little bit of a cheaper feed, a little less protein, and the cows will increase in their butter fat percent but they’ll give less overall pounds," he said. "So it helps us as a whole by not creating milk that we have no home for."
That lack of demand is something milk farmers are seeing across the state.
At the state level, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried said her agency is working to support dairy producers by pushing for the end of purchase limits at stores, working to improve storage for excess milk, pushing for stimulus funding at the federal level, increasing federal purchases of milk products, extending milk inspection deadlines, and providing a Florida-Farm-to-You list on their website to connect consumers with Florida dairy farmers.
That's help McClellan said would be greatly appreciated.
“If, at the state level, they can do anything to assist it would be helpful,” he explained.