WAUSAU, Wis. - Wisconsin farmers are celebrating - and paying off some debts - as milk prices rise to points rarely seen in the past five years.
"That's the nature of farming and the commodity markets," said Mike Wildeck, dairy agent for the University of Wisconsin-Extension Marathon County. "It's supply and demand, and it's a perishable product. It's very cyclical.
"You have times when you can't make ends meet and you're cutting corners, and other times you get caught up on bills and maybe replace some machinery."
The average price for Wisconsin milk in April was $17.20 per hundredweight, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wisconsin field office. That's up $4.70 from a year ago.
Darrell Javorek, who owns the Johnson Creek Dairy, said the price increase has been a boon for farmers dealing with higher feed, fuel and fertilizer costs.
Last year, Wisconsin farmers earned an average of $13.30 per hundredweight for their milk, $2.30 less than the 2005 average.
"We basically didn't turn a profit in the last year, and now they're at profitable levels," Javorek said. "Even now, we're trying to reduce our costs so we can take advantage of these prices."
Corn prices have been rising as a result of demand for the corn-based fuel ethanol, and Javorek said he thinks that might be spurring part of the increase in milk prices. To offset the increase in cost, he plans to plant about 420 acres of corn to feed the nearly 300 milk cows on his farm near Knowlton.
"If we can grow our corn at a little lower price than it is right now, it will certainly help," he said.
Other farmers have been trying to hedge their bets with agreements with processing plants or cooperatives that guarantee them a certain price for at least part of the milk they produce.
"They don't hit the home run and hit the high price, but they kind of even out the roller coaster," Wildeck said. "It's hard to run a business when it's feast and famine."
