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Kennedy to serve as MMPA Young Dairy Cooperator

A young dairy farmer is encouraging other farm families to start the succession process as early as possible.

Third-generation farmer Ashley Kennedy tells Brownfield she started buying into the family farm in her mid-20s.

“I hear a lot from young farmers about their transition plans, or lack thereof, and it makes me really sad and disappointed that my story is the exception, it’s not the rule,” she shares.

When she turned 30 in 2017, Kennedy and her husband Eric took on its full ownership and management.

“If we truly care about passing these farms on to the next generation, then sometimes we have to do the hard things and generational transfer is a compromise,” she says. “It’s not a everybody gets what they want thing.”

Since then, more than half of the dairy farms in Michigan have closed their doors and it’s a trend that continues. Last year Michigan lost the largest percentage of dairy farms in the nation, a drop of 16 percent.

Kennedy says that’s just one of the many reasons young dairy producers should be following how a new Federal Milk Marketing Order gets implemented.

“This is so important for young cooperators, we need to be following it,” she encourages. “We need to have a say in it. This is going to be in place for decades into the future and this is going to affect us more than it did our parents and our grandparents.”

She says hopefully a new farm bill can provide better protection for young farmers and producers impacted by price extremes.

Kennedy was recently named the Michigan Milk Producers Association Outstanding Young Dairy Cooperator for the coming year.

Photo courtesy of MMPA.

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