Golden “E” Dairy in West Bend, Wisconsin hasn’t had to dump milk since May 1st. But, even as the Elbe family, the farm’s owners, get further away from the dumping that took place, the emotional scars are still fresh. Chris Elbe, the farm’s founder, gets choked up just talking about what his family had to go through due to the pandemic. “Now when I hear the news talking about a possible resurgence of COVID coming in fall, you’re starting to think already what’s going to happen here at the farm,” Chris says. “Is the same thing going to happen,” he asks.
In total, roughly 750,000 gallons of milk were dumped at the Elbe’s operation. For four weeks straight, they continuously dumped the milk that their 2,400 cows produced right into their manure lagoon. “It’s still a mix of emotion and anger and disbelief, says Ryan Elbe, Chris’ son and the second generation of Golden “E”. Of his parents, Ryan says “they worked very hard to start this farm, grow this farm to what it is today…it’s entirely disheartening” to think about all the milk that was dumped.
On March 31st, Chris Elbe got a call from his Dairy Farmers of America area representative, asking if they’d be willing to dump milk. Later that same day they were essentially given no choice but to dump. “We were pretty much told we had to begin dumping milk immediately, and that’s what we did for about a month,” Ryan explains. Fortunately, the Elbe’s situation has improved in the last month a half. “We really buried our heads in the sand with spring planting,” Ryan says. “Around the same time the milk dumping stopped and everything went back to the normal grind.”
Make no mistake, the family is still looking over their shoulders after what they had to go through. And for them, the pain of the entire situation continues to linger. But, they push on the best they can. Ryan’s words of advice to farmers out there? “Hang in there…we were made for this. We’re the American farmer, we roll with the punches…we made it through,” he proudly exclaims.
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