local farmer comitted suicide

one of our farmers that recent went out of business committed suicide. he literally called my boss, thanked him for hauling his milk; when he got off the phone shot his remaining cows, set his pickup on fire, and shot himself. this farm was a walton stop with one of my co-workers was the guy that picked him up. this happened yesterday. what is happening to the diary industry is very sad, and it seems to be accelerating.

 

i really did not intend on this thread going political. honestly while their maybe some recent things that havent helped...... the farmers problems started over 5 years ago, long before he was president. this has been festering for a long, long time.

 

the farm that I lost on my route was the piela farm, the farmer that committed suicide was the ludder farm. they are completely unrelated.

piela had a problem with too much chlorine in their water, they did not catch it in time and roughly half of their herd succumbed to sickness. they had accidental poisoning insurance that was supposed to help them, the ins never paid out. in better times with better milk prices they likely would have recovered.

im not really sure what happened with ludder farm as it was not one of my stops. one of my co-workers picked that farm up. im sure the ludder farm was heavily in debt, which is commonplace these days.

not easy any small farm, they say in a few years time most left will be factory farms and the family farm is going the way of the dodo bird. just like anything else, corporatism sucks.

 

just what we need more malls selling overpriced Chinese made crap, malls with low income employment replacing once prosperous farms.