Where are all the cows?

I grew up on a dairy farm in the Snohomish Valley in the 1940s and ’50s. It was a time when things were not so complicated, and the family all worked together to complete the daily chores before the end of the day. The cattle had to be fed, the cows milked, and the crops were tended to during the growing season. When I was 5 years old, my dad showed me how to operate a 9N Ford tractor, and I have been tilling the valley soil ever since. Playing baseball or going fishing was not in our schedule. My sisters and I were all part of the labor force on the farm, and we all gained from it by obtaining a good work ethic, responsibility, common sense, and a concern and respect for the farm animals and the land.

My father, Walt Bartelheimer, was a strong advocate of producing locally, processing locally, and selling directly to the consumer. He had a creamery on the farm and bottled the milk in returnable glass bottles which he sold in Everett, Mountlake Terrace, and on the farm in Snohomish. Many may still remember Walt’s Milk House.

Through the ’50s, most communities had a creamery to process the milk that was being produced in the immediate area. The farmers usually had several options of creameries as to where to ship their milk. A lot of the milk was still being shipped in 10 gallon cans. Many of the small dairies stopped producing milk when the industry demanded refrigerated bulk storage milk tanks on the farm. Most of these farms had less than 20 cows and were located in the hills above the river valleys. The farms that continued to produce milk are now located almost entirely in the river valleys and floodways.

Both the mild climate of the Northwest, along with the fertile valley soils, are a major contributor toward high milk production. In the early 1900s, the Carnation Milk Company, needing milk for their creameries, provided the local dairymen with bulls to improve the genetics of their herds. All of these were major factors, along with the dedication and skills of the Snohomish county dairymen, resulting in the highest milk production per cow of any other county throughout the USA. This title was held for several years.

After the Clean Water Act was passed by the federal government, the Washington State Department of Ecology was responsible for enforcing it within the state. Next the DOE assumed the dairies in the Pacific NW must be a major contributor of contaminants to the local waterways. DOE began to implement new rules and regulations on the dairy industry. Many dairies responded by obtaining permits and making the required improvements in time to be confronted by a new set of rules and regulations.

The permit process was slow and expensive. With each new layer of regulation, another group of dairies ceased to do business or relocated out of the area. The cost of production escalated and many Snohomish county dairies could not remain competitive within the industry. Many of these were small family owned and operated dairies. The DOE has been successful in forcing the dairies out of the NW without having to purchase a single dairy. Today, there are only 28 dairies left in the county.

Milk produced from local dairies may be in our best interest. As a nation, we are concerned about food security, both availability and safety. Food security may need to be reviewed at all levels of our society. Shouldn’t we be considering a balance between economics of scale, food security, and the environment? As the dairies have been forced out by arbitrary governmental regulations, the local creameries have also closed. The few remaining large processing dairy plants require extended transportation from farm to the creamery. It is not uncommon in the industry to transport milk from dairies in California to a Washington creamery or from Washington to Idaho. Mega-size dairies and a limited number of creameries, when subject to natural disasters, fire, disease, contamination, etc., could have a devastating impact on both production and processing and could adversely curtail an adequate supply of safe, fresh dairy products.

I personally miss the cows and the small farms that once populated the Snohomish Valley and someday we may be asking why they had to go.

Third-generation farmer Dan Bartelheimer of Snohomish is the First vice president of the Snohomish County Farm Bureau.