Not the whole story as I see it!

In recent years several supper large dairies ( 5000 head or more) have put many (in my area all of the small dairy farmers) out of business because the buyers wanted to buy only from a few and refused to buy from the many life long smaller farmers.

Don't know about Wisconsin Farmers

Here in Indiana a large chain opened a dairy highly  touted by the government and probably subsidized building the plant as economic development. It took all the business from another dairy and then they cut the little guys out. 

I have little compassion for those.

cutworm,

I have heard the exact same thing that you are reporting.

What do you think of this article?

America’s Dairy Farmers Are Hurting. A Giant Merger Could Make Things Worse.

The largest dairy co-op in the United States is in talks to acquire Dean Foods, a milk processing company that sought bankruptcy protection last month.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/business/dean-foods-dairy-farmers-antitrust.html

Milk Futures 1 year below:

Milk futures 10 years below:

https://time.com/5736789/small-american-farmers-debt-crisis-extinction/

"For nearly two centuries, the Rieckmann family has raised cows for milk in this muddy patch of land in the middle of Wisconsin. Mary and John Rieckmann, who now run the farm and its 45 cows, have seen all manners of ups and downs — droughts, floods, oversupplies of milk that sent prices tumbling. But they’ve never seen a crisis quite like this one."

"Smaller farms have found it especially hard to adapt to these changes, which they blame on government policy and a lack of antitrust enforcement. The government is on the side of big farms, they say, and is ambivalent about whether small farms can succeed. “Get big or get out,” Earl Butz, Nixon’s secretary of agriculture, infamously told farmers in the 1970s. It’s a sentiment that Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary under President Trump, echoed recently. “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out,” Perdue said, at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. The number of farms with more than 2,000 acres nearly doubled between 1987 and 2012, according to USDA data. The number of farms with 200 to 999 acres fell over that time period by 44 percent."

"One category of small farmers is thriving in the current marketplace: organic farms who can charge a premium for their crops and who can sell them locally. There were more than 14,000 certified organic farmers in 2016, up 58 percent from 2011. But switching to organic is expensive, and for farmers like the Rieckmanns who are already deeply in debt, not an option. They haven’t gotten a cent of aid from the government, Rieckmann says, since the assistance goes to the farms with the most farmland and animals. They’re not holding their breath that anything will change. “I sometimes feel,” says Mary Rieckmann, “like they’re trying to wipe us off the map.”

my parents neighbor had 80+  milk cows, ( sw, ohio),  but has given up on that part of his farming operation.  he still farms (grows crops),  but no longer has milk cows.  

if you want to stay in business as a small operator,  you need to figure out your own niche venture.  you just can't do the same thing as the big boys.  

i pollinate for a niche "farmer" here close to tucson.  he has just 5 acres. and grows organic produce, which he then sells at farmers markets.  

there is huge demand for fresh, organic produce at farmers markets.   but i don't know if that has slowed down now with all the people staying home (self-isolating).  

Great point bear!

The last round of MFP was done without any payment limit based of size or income.  that move was not family farmer friendly