Land Value & Cow Migration Is There A Connection?

Recently with some industry folks, the conversation turned to dairy cow migration.

Along with the well-known regulatory, environmental, and social concerns the dairy industry and farmers face daily; there was some discussion within the conversation that high land values are a significant influence for cow (and dairy farmer) migration and in some cases, may be the single driver. This type of conversation encourages one to wonder, what is the relationship, if any, to rising land values and dairy cow migration?

Of course, the following is a high-level overview.

Back to 2003 state-by-state crop land prices and dairy cow population, the following two charts lays out some of the data (same data sorted two different ways).

The data is based on the top twenty-four dairy states as ranked by milk production for YTD 2023.

As you can observe, California as an example is the highest per acre price and the overall highest increase in dollar value, yet over the 20-year period the state gained an increase of 2% in dairy cow numbers. (2003 number of dairy farms numbered 2,060 vs *2022 1,115 sources: NASS) Even though overall cow numbers slightly increased, 46% of licensed producers disappeared.

Looking at states like TX, CO, SD ID, KS the land percentage increases were significant, however the 2023 per acre prices were still overall low compared to some of the other states and they had high overall percentage of cow numbers increase over the 20-year period.

States with declining cow numbers such as NY, VT, IL, Virginia, while land prices are high, one could make the argument these states tend to be regulatory and activist friendly while dairy farmer adverse.

So, what does it all mean? High land values most likely are "a contributor". Cows continue to migrate to the cow islands (see 2017 census map below). Next census due to publish during 2024. How these cow islands change over the next 20 years will be interesting to watch as could be anticipated, as an example, cow movement from states like NY to states such as TX. 

Expensive land prices in states like CA as a driver for cow movement because an acre of land is expensive to purchase, it is one might say a double-sided coin. This can be a driver for an owner to sell their expensive land in order to purchase in some cases significantly more land in a state with more reasonable land prices.

With history as the gauge, dairy cows will continue into areas like TX, KS, SD and other states like them, not only due to land price, but feed price and availability as well as friendlier social and regulatory rules. 

Yes, land prices (and their continued increases) play some part in the decision to move cows from one area to another, however, may not be as some might say, "the defining factor".