Severe Thunderstorm Watch With paltry dairy prices, Minnesota farmer prepares to milk his cows one last time

Milk prices for dairy farmers have hit rock bottom and stayed there too long. Cordes had to do something. "I just got my milk check for July's milk, and my base was $14 a hundredweight. And that is the same price I got 25 years ago, and our expenses have doubled and sometimes tripled," he said.While the math should make this an easy decision, it's not. After all, Cordes' ancestors from Germany arrived in this part of Otter Tail County before the 1900s. Since then, there has been a Cordes farming for 133 years. I am the last one, but that is a long run," he said.Cordes is not alone. In the last 18 years, 42,000 dairy farmers nationwide have called it quits. But just two hours south of Otter Tail County, there are mega dairy farms going up. Where in each barn, there are 10,000 cows being milked."I can't compete with such a specialized operation, and it runs like clockwork," Cordes said.These days, Otter Tail County has about 150 dairy farmers. There used to be hundreds.