The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) is accepting public input on the socioeconomic impacts of large-scale dairies — operations with 10,000 or more cows. These comments will be summarized for the Minnesota Legislature ahead of the 2027 legislative session.

We need LSP members and supporters across the state to speak up before the deadline on Thursday, Oct. 1. Your comment can help show lawmakers that decisions about mega-dairies affect more than one permit — they shape the future of family farming, rural economies, and our shared natural resources.  You can submit your personal comment via the MDA online form here.

LSP has submitted our own public comment, the full text of which you may find here.  We are inviting LSP member and dairy farmers from across the state to sign onto our public comment.  You can use the form here or at the end of this page to sign on as well as leave a story of your own regarding how large-scale dairies affect you and your farm.

Sign-On for our MDA Public Comment:

To: Thom Peterson, MDA Commissioner

Public Comment on Socio-economic impacts of Mega-dairies

September 2026

Socio-economic Impacts of Mega-Dairies on Dairy Farmers

The economic consolidation from mega-dairies has created a market that does not allow dairy farmers a fair opportunity to get a fair price. Over-supply drives down prices: because the price a dairy farmer receives is based on a federal pricing formula, when total milk production increases, prices can decline across the system. The market control mega-dairies have over cooperatives and processors limits the opportunities: when mega-dairies over-supply the market, they increase their negotiating power for contracts. When dairy farmers go out of business, it impacts the community by creating weaker rural economies and less stable food systems.

Public Policy

Public policy has created the dairy market we have, and different choices could create a future that is better for dairy farmers and rural communities. Current public policy has failed to establish fair markets for dairy farmers, and instead mostly reacts to the symptoms of the problem through indemnity payments and subsidies.

Minnesota’s dairy farmers do not want government pay-outs when their costs exceed the price they receive; they want to sell their products for a fair price.

Solutions

Public policy can create fair market opportunities for dairy farmers by increasing access to markets with a fair price and addressing market dominance.

Expanding market access:

• Dairy farmers could benefit from the expanding processing capacity of value-added products (such as cheese and yogurt), which offers an increased profit margin.
• On-farm processing has expanded opportunities for some dairy farmers.

Offering a fair price:

• Public policy already makes decisions for how public institutions purchase food products, and could offer dairy farmers a fair price in a stable and high-demand market by connecting schools, hospitals, the military, and other public institutions to high-quality dairy products.
• The pricing formulas that determine what dairy farmers are paid can be adjusted to better reflect costs of production, including price floors based on the scale of operations or by increasing the price paid to farmers of a certain scale.

Addressing market dominance:

• Investing in new processing or new markets, will not be effective if mega-dairies that currently own an out-sized share of the market can continue to over-supply and undercut the market opportunities of the other existing dairy farmers.
• Instead of allowing an anti-competitive market that essentially functions like a monopoly, Minnesota policy-makers could envision rules that focused on making sure the supply going into new markets does not exceed the demand and creating fair access based on existing market share.
• In other markets seeking to address unfair competition, public policy sets a definition of what dominance by a particular entity looks like, for example 30% of a market share or that no entity should be many times larger than the average. Dairy farmers would benefit by ensuring new investments in markets were not accessible by the mega-dairies who already overly dominate the market.

Next generation of dairy farmers:

• Public policy can support the next generation of dairy farmers, through training and apprenticeship programs; however, any investment in transitioning dairy farms to the next generation, must be met with market reforms that offer a fair price.

A fair market with the goal of allowing all dairy farmers to be successful will increase rural economic growth, healthy food, and stewardship of the land.

The path to a better dairy economy is in front of us: access to processing, opportunities to sell into stable markets, prices that reflect the existing market, and anti-monopolistic safeguards that prevent the operators who currently dominate the market to take control of future investments.

Signed by:

I am a dairy farmer or former dairy farmer and I have seen the impacts outlined here and support the calls to action: