Missouri’s dairy industry is in accelerated free fall. Saying it aloud won’t always please the industry’s producers or leaders, for theirs is a plight of diligence and hard work running headlong into a greater circumstance.

In Missouri, the number of Grade A dairies has slipped from about 2,700 in 1993 to fewer than 1,500 in 2004. Of course, milk production per cow has increased over that time, but not enough to counter the herd liquidation. Accounting for the slow increase in production, Missouri’s average cow milked 15,139 pounds in 2004—3,818 pounds lower than the national average. For 2004, the average in Kansas was 19,611 pounds per cow. In Iowa it was 19,912 pounds.

Easy access to grass may affect output, but Missouri’s herd numbers reflect a shift in agriculture that no segment escapes—consolidation. And anyone who has bothered to pay attention to agriculture for the past decade knows that consolidation isn’t a malignant force driven just by corporate greed or the secondary effects of ham-fisted government policy. No, there are more subtle forces at work. For one, the Midwestern dairyman hasn’t gotten any younger. In fact, they are retiring in droves. It’s only anecdotal evidence on my part, but in the past 10 years of poking around the Midwest, I’ve noticed the only people leaving the dairy faster than aged-out dairymen are the sons and daughters who would need to come home to make the thing go. The reasons are numerous but typically boil down to the fact that the dairy isn’t big enough to generate the kind of income a family could earn in town, or more accurately, the dairy carries with it huge risk and pays in wildly fluctuating income—all for the convenience of a job where the owner is working or at least on call 7 days a week, 365 days per year.

Regardless of the reasons for quitting, attrition takes its toll. Missouri, an agricultural state, imports milk. The state’s consumers and processors use 1.4 billion pounds more than its producers deliver.

Other than cast alarming statistics and bang on about the forces of consolidation, what is to be done? To start, we should recognize and encourage the efforts already underway.

I recently had the opportunity to sit in on a meeting of  the Missouri Dairy Growth Council. The council is a group of agriculture leaders, state and industry representatives, and farmers who understand what dairy has been to the state and what it still can be. Its efforts so far include setting up planning grants for individual dairy producers as well as educating lenders about the financial needs and returns of a modern dairy. In forming, the council was wise to include a member from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Expansion of existing herds or courting dairy investment must be done in concert with and in context of reasonable regulatory oversight.

Next, we must come to terms with the fact dairy expansion will mean locations that exploit grain resources north of the Missouri River. It’s a region with fewer population and water quality issues than the state’s traditional southwest dairy complex. That is not to say dairies in south Missouri and other parts should be forsaken. These traditional strongholds host great amounts of intellectual capital and experience. Expansion in the thin margins of agriculture is impossible without both, and a strong dairy infrastructure brings benefits statewide.

Finally, there is the element of timing. Missouri’s governor, born and raised in Holstein hills of southwest Missouri, has consistently vowed his support for the industry. That’s an offer we ought not to keep waiting.