Perhaps the story is apocryphal, but Joe Bixler talks about a Michigan dairy farmer who, when the cooperative wouldn't take his milk for the third time, opened the valve to his holding tank and killed himself.

Bixler, who is District 10 Michigan State University Extension director, said milk and dairy prices have trended downward since about 2014 — and that's causing stress on the farm.

"On the retail end, you've seen prices as low as 75 cents a gallon at Aldi's and $1.09 at Kroger," Bixler said. "It costs on average $1.75 to produce it on the farm.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out someone is losing money, and it's the farmer."

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Suzanne Pish, a certified family life educator at the Branch County MSU Extension office in Coldwater, said there has been an increase in suicides among Michigan farmers.

"I'm unsure of the exact amount, but yes, we have had an increase in farmers that have committed suicide," she said in an email. "That is why Michigan State University Extension has been doing the 'Communicating with Farmers Under Stress' workshops around the state for agricultural professionals that work with farmers and their families.

"We want them to have the tools to talk and pick up on the symptoms, and give farmers and their families resources when they are in need of help due to chronic stress."

She said farmers are getting less money for their products — and that increases the squeeze.

"Milk prices for farmers (in 2014) were around $24 per hundredweight (100 pounds), and they dipped to a low of around $13 per hundredweight," she said. "Break even for a farmer is around $17."

Down on the farm

Maybe there's a tendency among people who don't farm, who don't live on farms, who don't interact with farmers to view the lifestyle through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia.

But the sleepy rural life of Old McDonald long ago disappeared — if it had ever existed at all.

One number, in particular, demonstrates the hard reality of farming: A 2012 study of suicide in 17 states and reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a rate of 84.5 suicides per 100,000 people in the farming, fishing and forestry industries. That's the highest rate of the 25 occupational groups studied.

The suicide rate for men in those three industries was 90.5 per 100,000.

Compare that to the suicide rate for the general population older than 16 in the U.S. during 2012: According to the CDC report, 16.1 per 100,000.

Maybe the story about the Michigan farmer draining his tank and killing himself didn't happen or wasn't reported, but in 2010, New York dairy farmer Dean Pearson calmly killed all 51 of his cows with a .22 rifle, then sat down in a chair in his barn, placed a 12-gauge shotgun against his chest and pulled the trigger.

Marianne Buza works with dairy farmers as an educator at the Huron County MSU Extension office in Bad Axe. She's seen the pressure Michigan dairy farmers contend with daily.

"I think there is a lot of stress and a lot of pressure," she said. "You have to remember some of these farms are fourth- and fifth-generation farms.

"These young people are trying very hard to keep their family legacy afloat. With milk prices as they are, it's very hard for them to break even let alone make a living."

As farm families have done for generations, often the farmer takes a second job or has a spouse who works in order to generate more income, she said.

"There is a lot of financial stress," Buza said. "At the end of the day, you have to think about farms as being small businesses.

"They're like mom and pop shops. It’s hard for mom and pop shops to compete with Walmarts."

Dennis Stein, senior extension educator, farm business management at the Tuscola County MSU Extension office in Caro, said many farmers are under the gun.

"The finances have been extremely tight, and they have been for a couple years now," he said. "That creates a lot of tension."

The pressure, he said, sometimes comes from an unexpected source — maintaining the legacy of those who came before.

"A lot of farms are traditionally passed down from generation to generation: 'I have to do this for the family ...'

"It’s not just you," Stein said. "It’s not just you, mom and the kids.

"A lot of farm land is passed down through the generations," he said. "If you’re the current one running it, there’s a lot of stress."

Passing it on

Jim Reid milks about 220 cows three times daily at his farm on Vincent Road near Jeddo in northern St. Clair County. He's 67, and he's looking to pass on the farm to his son, Jeff, 31.

Jeff Reid has two sons, 13 and 5, who someday might take over the farm. The older son is already working on the family farm.

"We don't know if he's going to be part of this," Jim Reid said.

The family has been an agricultural mainstay in St. Clair County for many years — the homestead farm on North Road was settled in 1868, Reid said.

"Everybody was a farmer in 1868," he said.

Reid also is president of the United Dairy Industry of Michigan, a group that promotes milk and dairy products.

"We collect funds from the dairy producers," he said. "It’s a check-off, 15 cents a hundredweight, and we use those funds to promote dairy."

Reid said dairy farmers in 2014 had "an exceptional year."

"Prices were at a level we could make money and actually replace some of our equipment ... and get a return on investment."

With the downturn, he said, it can be a struggle to keep the farm going.

"Every dairy farm has a different financial situation than other," Reid said. "Most dairy farms have to obtain loans, whether it is to upgrade equipment or build a building, purchase land. We’ve had to do a lot of refinancing.

"We’re used to cycles in any commodity," he said. " … You have cycles, typically it’s about a three- to four-year cycle. You will have a high period of prices where the farmers will be doing fine and then it will swing into a (down) cycle.

"We’ve been in this depressed situation for about 2½ years."

Reid said he's been able to meet expenses and pay his employees, but there's not much left over for him and his family.

"Over the course of the last 30 months, there are probably six months out of those 30 months, when we were above the cost of production," he said.

More milk and fewer dollars

Reid and other dairy farmers are competing on a global stage with farmers in places as far away as Ireland, New Zealand and Australia — and, according to the experts, there's a glut of milk on the world market.

There are other factors as well, but the reason why farmers aren't getting as much for their milk is simple Adam Smith economics: Too much supply and not enough demand.

Cows might look homey and homely, but there's a lot of science at work to ensure they're putting out high yields. For example, like highly paid athletes, Reid's cows have their own nutritionist who determines what they should be eating.

Some of his cows wear devices that track their activity, letting Reid know when is the ideal time for them to be inseminated. Computers track each animal's output.

Reid's 220 cows produce about 4,000 gallons of milk every two days — to compare, Burtchville Township is going to buy a new water tender for its fire department that carries 5,000 gallons of water.

"We’ve grown," Reid said. "Michigan continues to grow anywhere from 3 to 6 percent per year in milk production. It’s a great place to produce milk.

"But that has caused problems in finding a home for this milk."

Ernie Birchmeier, livestock and dairy specialist for Michigan Farm Bureau, said Michigan does not have the capacity to process all the milk coming off the farm.

"The coops are doing their best to handle all the milk that’s being produced, but we are running into a real milk processing capacity problem here in Michigan," he said.

Some milk is being shipped south to processors in other states including Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky but, according to Stein, that can add $1.50 to $2.50 in processing costs per hundredweight.

Birchmeier said the state dairy herd "has grown tremendously over the past decade."

"In the last 15 years we've added about 120,000 cows to the state’s dairy herds," he said. "In Michigan alone, from July of 2016 to July of 2017, we added another 7,000 cows. We’re at 427,000 cows in the state of Michigan."

He said, on average, Michigan cows produce a gallon of milk more per day than the average cow in the rest of the U.S.

"It’s just a great place to dairy," he said. "The problem is we’re blowing the lid off the bulk tank literally with the amount of milk we’re producing."

Stein said the federal government also no longer buys cheese and milk to support a base price for dairy products.

"Those type of programs have been eliminated," he said. "We have a program that tries to do some economic adjustments ... but the reality is there aren't any price supports anymore. There have been insurance programs put in place, but those have to be revived and revised in order to be effective."

Cows produce milk every day, he said.

"You don’t lay off a shift and give them a two-week Fourth of July furlough until we get our supply under control," Stein said.

"We got in this because our supply increase has outpaced the demand increase," he said. "Demand has continued to grow on a regular basis. It’s not that we’re not using more milk domestically.

"We just got into a situation where Michigan farms grew faster … than what that infrastructure could handle."

How to help

The experts say if there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it's dim and a long way off.

"Things are getting a little bit better," Reid said. "We are starting to see some improvement on milk prices. We are getting to that break-even point. We are going to see some improvement between now and the end of the year."

Pish said MSU Extension has programs designed to help farmers and others in the agriculture business cope with stress.

"Michigan State University Extension has a workshop available for ag business professionals," she said in her email. "We also have our website, http://msue.anr.msu.edu/program/info/managing_farm_stress, which has a video, a fact sheet and an online free module that farmers and their families can access anytime. There are also many other resources on this website."

Contact Bob Gross at (810) 989-6263 or rgross@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @Robert Gross477.

Getting help

There are several signs or symptoms when a farm family may be in need of help, according to Suzanne Pish of Michigan State University Extension. These signs can be observed by friends, extended family, neighbors, milk haulers, vets, clergy, school personnel, health and human service workers and others: