PITTSFIELD – Record-high prices being paid by Canadian and Californian farming corporations for milking cows and heifers have proven to be the cash cow for farmers anxious to bail out of dairy farming, a living they call “a losing game.”

“In the last 12 months, Maine has lost between 20 and 30 farms,” Maine Agriculture Commissioner Robert Spear confirmed this week.

For the first time, Maine’s farm tally could be below 400. Five years ago, there were 650 farms in the state.

“This loss is becoming a downward trend, and it concerns us greatly,” said Spear.

The result of this exodus is clear: a serious milk shortage throughout New England.

Maine’s milk production is down 7.6 percent for the first quarter of 2001, compared to a national drop of 3.1 percent.

“We’re talking huge declines. We are seeing this throughout New England,” said Robert Wellington, a milk economist with Agri-Mark of Massachusetts, the region’s largest milk cooperative.

The result will be a small consumer increase, 10 to 15 cents, in the price of a gallon of milk, but much higher prices for butter and cheese.

“When the farm price goes up,” said Wellington, “the retail price goes up a lot.” The drinking milk prices will be stabilized because of the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact, but cheese and butter prices will continue to escalate, peaking in the fall and early winter, he said.

“Wholesale prices for butter are now up by 75 cents a pound and 50 to 60 cents a pound for cheese,” he said.

Wellington agrees that the exodus of cows from New England is a primary factor in the milk shortage.

A cow that might have brought a high of $700 at auction two years ago, according to dealers and livestock auctioneers, will sell today for $1,300. Multiply that by a herd of 100 or more cows and there is a tremendous incentive for dairy farmers to sell.

Jeff and Nadine Weymouth of Charleston, both 41, just sold their 91-head herd last month. They were the third generation of Weymouths to milk cows.

This summer, Jeff Weymouth is growing and selling hay; next year, he’ll work off the farm.

Although they had inherited the farm and didn’t have a heavy mortgage, the couple said the daily expenses of dairy farming were too high. Their electric bill neared $800 a month; they paid trucking fees of more than $1,000 a month.

“Even though we got a very good price for the cows,” Nadine Weymouth said, “once we pay everything off, we still won’t have anything left.”

“We were just so sick and tired of working seven days a week, 18 hours a day for nothing,” she said. “The price for milk fluctuated from $18 to $9 [per hundredweight], and the price in the store never changes. You just can’t make a living this way.”

Nadine Weymouth said times got so tough that they were unable to hire outside help last year, so she quit her job and gave up its benefits to help her husband. The move left the family without health insurance coverage.

It was a sad day when the dealer loaded up the cows and drove away, she said.

“It was hard on Jeff at first. But you know what? Now he smiles once in a while. He never did before.”

Bernard Charrier has been a livestock dealer in central Maine for 46 years. “I have never seen anything like this,” he said, referring to the over-the-top prices being paid for cows.

“There are no farms left in California,” Charrier explained. “They are all mega-corporate facilities. And there seems to be no limit to what [money] they’ll give. They are buying 500 and more cows at a time.”

A few years ago, heifer calves could be bought at auction for $50 to $60. Today those 2-day-old calves are bringing $150 to $200, and being shipped to New Holland, Pa., where western buyers are paying $4 a pound for them, said Charrier.

Adult cows are bringing equally shocking prices.

“It’s nothing to see an entire herd go for $1,500 a cow, when a few years ago they’d bring $600,” said Charrier. “These prices are unbelievable.”

Another aspect of the heifer shortage, he said, is the number of Maine heifers being purchased by Dutch farmers emigrating in large numbers to Canada.

Charrier explained that farms in the Netherlands are small, 35 to 40 acres, and because the cost of land there is extremely high, there is little ability for Dutch farmers to expand.

Because of the strength of the Dutch currency, the farmers can emigrate to Canada and purchase a 400-acre Canadian farm for the same money.

“They need cows, and they are willing to pay,” Charrier said. “They are hard, hard workers, and they’re buying every heifer they can find.”

“I have two fellas right here in Maine; one wants a small herd and another wants 25 head,” the dealer said, but he can’t find the cows to fill the order.

Mexican farmers also are buying up every heifer they can find.

“It is crazy, crazy out there,” said Charrier, who said his business suffers because he has to search farther and longer for heifers to sell. The dealer said Maine used to have a dozen or so retired farmers who would raise heifers, but they also have all gone out of business.

Agriculture experts are blaming the mass emigration of cows for the serious drop in milk production, and Maine isn’t alone.

“There has been a massive outflow of heifers to the mega-dairy farms in Kansas and the Midwest,” Steve Taylor, New Hampshire’s agriculture commissioner, said earlier this month. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics for the first four months of this year indicate milk production has dropped in all New England states. In New Hampshire, production is off 1.2 percent, but in New York, it is down by 5.6 percent. Connecticut is off by 6 percent, Vermont by 6.7 percent, and Rhode Island is producing 21 percent less milk than last year.

By comparison, the national level has dropped 3.1 percent.

“These drops are huge, absolutely huge,” said Wellington of Agri-Mark.

A lack of milk equates to a lack of surplus that is diverted into cheese, butter and powdered milk. June is usually the month of milk surplus, called “the flush,” and Wellington said that tank trucks are normally lined up around the block at Agri-Mark’s Springfield, Mass., powdered milk plant.

“There aren’t any trucks this month,” the economist said. “In fact, the plant is closed down several days a week. I cannot imagine what will happen if this continues into September.”

The shortage has put prices for milk diverted into cheese production through the roof.

“We could be looking at record high cheese prices this year,” he said, adding that the Chicago wholesale price for cheese a year ago was $1.10 per pound.

“Right now it is sitting at $1.68. Butter that was $1.25 per pound wholesale is now at $2 a pound,” he said. Consumers already are seeing butter prices creep higher in their local supermarkets, and cheese soon will follow.

“With the price of cows so high, I can certainly see why farmers who were contemplating selling out would pick this summer to do so,” said Wellington. “On the other hand, those farmers who choose to stay in business will do well. For farmers who have had a few years of rock-bottom prices, these higher prices will help them.”

Spear, who is a farmer himself, said that the trend in Maine is for small farms to disappear and large farms to get larger.

“The excitement of owning a farm is sometimes offset by the actual hard work,” he said. “Also, farming is financially very difficult.

“It is very important that we, at the state level, do everything to try to keep these people in business,” the commissioner said. In Maine’s Agriculture Department, Spear said, state officials are working to provide education, outreach programs and financial safety nets to struggling farmers.

“We are working on tax issues, relief through the farm and open space programs, and just Wednesday, we looked at a federal risk management program,” he said. “This provides money and insurance through the USDA. We are teaming up with [University of Maine] Cooperative Extension to look at ways to transition farms from one person to another. We’re looking at health issues, looking at markets.”

Spear said the health of Maine’s dairy industry would be a priority over the next 12 months.

“When a farm closes, there is a wide-reaching ripple effect. Suppliers, milk haulers, grain dealers – all are adversely affected,” he added.