MIDDLEBURG — Andrew Snook’s life hung in the balance following a 40-foot fall from a silo on his Paxtonville farm three years ago. The dairy farmer has since recovered almost fully but now faces a “bleak” future due to falling milk prices.
Nationwide, low milk prices are putting dairy farmers out of business and Snook said he’s not standing for it.
Between 1970 and 2006, the number of farms with dairy cows decreased 88 percent, from 648,000 operations in 1970 to 75,000 in 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Pennsylvania is ranked fifth in the country for milk cow inventory, but it has also seen the number of dairy farms decline markedly, from 82,708 in 1954 to 6,650 today.
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