Since the beginning of 2018, in a bleak shift in procedure, dairy cooperatives have been enclosing suicide hotline information with the checks they mail. For example, after a series of farmer suicides in a short period of time, Agri-Mark, a dairy cooperative from New England, mailed checks with a chart displaying the ominous milk forecast for the upcoming year along with a list of suicide hotlines. They felt the need to address the problem head on, but farmers were shocked and often devastated by the blunt response to a critical and sensitive topic. The subtext was clear: things are bad, and about to get worse.

This week, the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) and 52 allied organizations sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and the leadership of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees to demand action to support dairy farmers currently in crisis. According to the letter, milk prices are presently at $15 per hundred pounds of milk, 30 percent below the cost of production.

Bruce Drinkman, a dairy farmer turned farmer advocate in Wisconsin, described conversations with other dairy farmers of his generation who say they feel they have “nothing to show for a lifetime of work.” And still, prices are projected to dip even lower.

The oversupply of milk and dairy products is largely due to the structural inadequacies of the Federal Milk Marketing Order, a system in which producers compete within a marketing area and set minimum prices. This pricing structure ends up benefiting large producers while threatening small local businesses. Regional farmers can’t keep up. Ohio, for instance, saw the closing of 59 dairy farms in a mere five months because of unsustainably high costs of production paired with dismal milk prices, which have been on the decline for four years consecutively. As Mr. Drinkman put it, “Until our government decides they’re going to do something, it’s just going to continue to be the bloodbath that it is.”