Dairy Farmers of America to Merge with Dairylea in 2014

Dec 30, 2013

Dairy Farmers of America, the United States’ largest marketing cooperative, based in Kansas City, has approved a plan to merge with Dairylea Cooperative Inc, of Syracuse, New York. Dairylea, a regional co-op in Upstate New York has about 2,000 members and markets around 6 billion pounds of milk per annum, while DFA has about 13,000 members and markets upwards of 61 billion pounds of milk per annum.

Although Dairylea is already a member co-op of DFA, the merger would bring together resources and expertise to form one of the largest dairy marketing services in the world. "They have been so closely coordinated that this is going to be a pretty smooth transition," predicted Andrew Novakovic, Ph.D., an agricultural economist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

While many look at this merger as good thing, there are of course, the sceptics. "Not everybody is going to agree with this move," said Mary Fetter, who runs a Wyoming County dairy farm with her husband, Paul. They are DFA members.

"There's going to be unhappy DFA members," Fetter said. "Is it good or bad? Time is going to tell."

Dairylea members will vote on the proposed plan in February.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.