Eastern NM dairy losses will have local impact

Eastern NM dairy losses will have local impact Las Cruces Sun News By Jason Gibbs There’s no question the post-Christmas blizzard in eastern New Mexico will have a long-term impact on the state’s dairy industry. While southern New Mexico dairy farmers were largely spared from the large-scale loss of livestock seen around Roswell, Clovis and Portales, the effects of the storm will be felt in Doña Ana County as well, said Jeff Witte, New Mexico’s secretary of agriculture. Witte spent the latter part of last week surveying storm losses in the eastern portions of the state, and said the number of head of cattle lost was still being determined, and the infrastructure losses still being tallied. Some estimates put the number of cattle deaths, largely in the dairy industry in New Mexico and West Texas, as high as 20,000 to 40,000, Witte said those numbers might exaggerate the actual losses. The federal government has implemented disaster relief eligibility for impacted ranchers and farmers. “Farmers and ranchers play a critical role in our state’s economy. I encourage New Mexico families who have suffered financial hardship due to the winter storms to utilize these relief programs so they can rebuild their herds and continue our rich agricultural traditions,” said U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-NM. “For more information about eligibility and applying for disaster assistance, New Mexicans should contact their local U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency office, or visit fsa.usda.gov.” “We don’t know,” Witte said last week of the overall amount of loss. “Early on, there was tremendous speculation using percentages. We are finding that’s not the case. We are finding better numbers in some cases. We are looking predominantly at dairy folks. Anything in a confined condition, and they had winds up to 80 miles per hour. It happens so fast there is no way to prepare for Goliath.” While losses in the southern regions of the state were minimal, many dairy operations have vested interests in both regions and will likely see a shift, moving stock from the southern areas to the eastern dairies and, in the short term, increasing production to fill the needs for the state’s dairy industry, including value-added agricultural products such as cheese or yogurt. New Mexico has become a national leader in cheese and milk production, averaging more than 672 million pounds of milk per month and a total of more than 8 billion pounds in 2014, the last year for which statistics are available from the Department of Agriculture. This tallies out to over 168,000 tanker loads of raw milk a year generated in the state of New Mexico alone. “There are going to be losses on the east side of the state and they will be coming out of Doña Ana County,” Witte said. “There’s going to be some opportunity to move yearlings and younger dairy cattle to the eastern side of the state. The unique part of New Mexico’s dairy industry is many Doña Ana County dairies also operate in Roswell and on the eastern side of the state. “The biggest thing was getting feed to the stock,” Witte added. “The rail system was down, roads were blocked and people couldn’t move the feed. Supplies were there, so that was good.” The days of disruption while farmers struggled to account for and feed stranded cattle did have an impact on the state’s cheese making plants, including F & A Dairy Products on Las Cruces’ west mesa, although to a much lesser degree and not enough to slow production, said Bob Snyder, vice president of F & A. “Locally we weren’t impacted like they were on the east side of the state,” Snyder said. “They lost a lot of milk, lost a lot of cows. As far as F & A, we are fine. We met our projection needs but couldn’t get the milk we wanted to get. I don’t know what we’ll get for next week. I’ve got calls in” to the dairies to see what they can deliver. It will take some time for dairy farmers to recover from the loss of stock. Beverly Idsinga, the executive director of Dairy Producers of New Mexico, a trade group that also has members in West Texas, told the New York Times that it may take a year to return milk production to its pre-storm levels in eastern New Mexico, which is home to 75 percent of all dairy farms in the state. However, with southern New Mexico producers moving stock back to the eastern plains and ramping up production, and given a well-established flow of milk from across the United States, the impact will be minimal, despite a brief shortage due to the lost herds and the inability to move milk from farm to factory during and immediately after the storm. “There were days of disruption that impacted cheese-making facilites who were not getting milk, but every cheese factory is back up to speed,” Witte said. Meanwhile, dairy farmers and beef cattle ranchers are still recovering from the storm.The health of their animals is their primary focus. “What happens in a deal like this is initially a period of 48 hours farmers can’t get cattle back to milking parlors, then trucks couldn’t get in so they had to dump the milk,” Witte said. The industry term of “dumping” milk does not mean the milk is wasted. Instead, it is used as a feed supplement for livestock. Now, dairy farmers are again milking their remaining cows and shipping that milk to processing facilities where it is pasteurized and packaged in jugs or cartons, or turned into value-added products like cheese and yogurt. Ranchers are now better able to access the far reaches of their pastures. They are getting feed to their cattle to supplement their grazing, and breaking the ice that forms in water troughs so their animals have water to drink. Aside from herd health, longer-term concerns for dairy farmers and beef cattle ranchers include rebuilding their herds, as well repairing barns and other agricultural buildings that were damaged by the storm’s heavy snows and high winds, Witte said. Dubbed in media reports as Goliath, the record snowstorm was not without an upside for New Mexico agriculture. Wet snow likely benefitted cold-season crops such as winter wheat, which is grown in the state’s eastern counties. Another silver lining for southern New Mexico is an opportunity to ramp up production and move stock to the decimated dairies in eastern New Mexico as those farmers and ranchers recover from the loss. But the New Mexico agricultural community, as it always has, will come out to support their neighbors. “The biggest thing was it was heartwarming to watch the community come together, opening roads, life and safety issues,” Witte said. “Every storm has a silver lining and I guess that was it. It brings people together for the common good.”