“Depreciation is what erodes the balance sheet, which means your net worth is diminishing and that net worth is what farmers retire on when that day comes,” says Mark Hagedorn, the ag agent for UW-Extension’s Eau Claire County office.

“But there’s (no money) left to replace old machinery, which is how you replenish that depreciation bucket. So cash flows are so tight for even those that are surviving.”

Lost legacies

Some dairy farmers in northwest and western Wisconsin are selling their milking dairy cows and investing in other livestock such as beef cattle and goats, according to Katie Wantoch, the ag agent for UW-Extension’s Dunn County office.

So she wasn’t surprised to learn that the Wisconsin counties with the highest percentage of closings last year were Eau Claire (15.5 percent), Dunn (14), Polk (13.8), Trempealeau (13.2) and Barron (11.8), according to the NASS data.

“A lot of these farms that have closed that I’m familiar with in Dunn County, I would say three quarters of them are people closer to that retirement age,” Wantoch said. “There is nobody interested in taking over for them, their barns are older, they’re not in a position where they want to upgrade the facilities and there’s nobody to continue to milk the cows for them.”

But the cows aren’t leaving the area because farmers getting out of the dairy business are selling their cows to neighboring farms, according to Wantoch. As of the end of 2017, the number of cows in Eau Claire, Dunn and Trempeleau counties hasn’t changed since 2013 while Barron County has 500 fewer cows and Trempeleau has 100 fewer, according to NASS data.

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