‘Too much milk’: Production is up, prices are down and farmers are in crisis

The price Litkea gets for his milk is 43 percent off from its 2014 high. For all his work, Litkea said he's earning about $650 a month. A few years ago, he dropped his health insurance, a $1,100-a-month expense. Then he got rid of his crop insurance, farm insurance, even his car insurance.“I pay out more than I make,” he said. “I have an $800 loan payment, electric bills and feed bills and fuel bills.”Through the years, he scraped out a comfortable living and raised a family. Now he’s on the brink of financial ruin.“My son-in-law and my daughter are buying me groceries because I can’t afford it,” he said.Litkea’s story is all too common. Once revered for their work ethic and their contribution to the nation’s food supply, small farmers today are being crushed under the weight of a glut that for the past four years has sent dairy prices tumbling.The pure white milk Litkea sells to processors is being devalued by an array of factors that includes the world price of cheese, the price of dry whey, the price of butter and non-fat dry milk. He’s being hammered by a trade war he doesn’t support and a federal pricing system he doesn’t understand. He harbors bitterness, much of it directed toward the big farms he says are putting him out of business, and for the politicians that allow it all to happen.