WOOSTER, Ohio —Midwest dairy farmers can relax. It’s not time to begin crying over spilt milk. At least, not yet.

Recent videos of Minnesota and Wisconsin farmers dumping thousands of gallons of milk due to oversupply issues is a haunting reminder to dairy farmers here in the Midwest. After all, it was only three years ago that those dairy farmers were dumping milk of their own during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Roughly half of the total demand for dairy products comes via grocery store sales and the other half is derived from the food-services industry, which include restaurants, hotels, airlines and schools. 

 Dairy farmer Kevin Spreng of Willow Brook Dairy in Wayne County in Ohio recalls dumping 742 gallons of milk during the coronavirus epidemic. His processor, Dairymens Inc. in Cleveland had no capacity to take any more milk because of changes in dairy consumption. That dumping cost Spreng an estimated $1,200.

 “It was a rush of emotions and thoughts,” said Spreng, who milks 650 cows at three locations in Wayne County. “My first question was ‘are we going to be compensated and where will that compensation be coming from?’”

 The current issue plaguing those in Minnesota and Wisconsin is a market problem, not an epidemic one. Sarah Schmidt, vice president of marketing with Associated Milk Producers Inc. (AMPI) in Portage, Wisconsin says the milk dumping in these two states is simply because the milk market is flooded.

 “There is more milk on the market and fluid milk sales have declined drastically, especially with schools closing for the summer,” Schmidt said. “Those fluid milk sales were there for the past several months and simply are not there now.”

 Schmidt said that milk from outside the Upper Midwest is pushing into the region and displacing typical, seasonal sales. She also noted that all AMPI milk receiving plants are running at full capacity.

 “The milk produced on member farms is exceeding our processing and marketing capacity,” she said. “The team is working hard to keep milk moving into processing facilities.”

 A similar dilemma faces dairymen in and around Corpus Christi, Texas. Dairy farmers can’t find any processing plants to accommodate their additional milk.

 “There’s only so much processing capacity and everyday we’re closing processing plants,” said Joe Knolle, owner of Knolle Dairy Farms in Sandia, Texas.

 Knolle’s family-owned business is the only operating dairy farm in the South Texas region. He’s had to dump hundreds of gallons of milk from his dairy farm the past three years.

 “Large processing plants are at capacity,” he said. “There’s this huge tidal wave of milk just coming down the pipeline, but where does it all go?”

 The International Dairy Foods Association said about five percent (or 3.7 million gallons) of the country’s entire milk supply is being dumped annually.

Ed Townley, CEO of Cabot Creamery Co-op in Waitsfield, Vermont points to three issues that have led to this oversupply across various areas of the country.

 “First, dairy products are highly perishable, there’s urgency to get it distributed,” he said. “Second, since under-milking signals the cows’ bodies to halt production, cows must be milked twice a day. Third, cows produce milk at the fastest rate this time of year, since many cows give birth in late winter and spring pastures are high in nutrients. This triple-punch has left farmers win an unanticipated milk surplus and no place to store it.”

 The USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) states that “there is a perfect storm facing dairy farmers” within the next year. The ERS estimates that milk receipts will fall by 14.6 percent (or $8.4 billion), a decline only surpassed by chicken egg receipts (minus 24 percent). The decline in milk prices means that dairy farmers are likely to see an increase in support through the Dairy Margin Coverage Program, which is forecast to make $285 million in payments this year.