Restructuring America's Dairy Farms^*

* The author would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the manuscript.

Abstract

As the number of American dairy farms rapidly declines, the character and spatial distribution of the remaining farms is undergoing fundamental change. Concentrating on an examination of both the smallest commercial farms (with 10–49 cows) and the largest dairy operations (with at least 500 cows), this study shows that megadairies are spreading from California into Idaho and America's traditional dairy belt, while Amish farmers are growing in prominence among those milking fewer than fifty cows. Although the greatest proportional declines in dairy farms have been among the smaller operations, average farm size throughout much of the nation remains well below 100 cows. Within a decade Amish farmers may operate one‐fifth of the nation's dairy farms as they expand across the traditional dairy belt, and 500‐cow dairies in the Midwest will outnumber those in California.

• agricultural change
• Amish
• dairy farms
• megadairies
• United States

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John A. Cross

Dr. Cross is a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin‐Oshkosh, Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901.