[metalman]

the issue is pay, but it is hard to evaluate pay on a dairy, as the work occurs 365 days a year, with a few intense periods when haying and or planting and harvesting corn,calving, and then mostly 3~4 hrs a day, one very early in the morning, so there are only odd situations that make it worth while to anybody, and as pointed out, loosing labour can instantly change all of someones plans. I read the article diferently as my grand parents and uncles farmed in Penn state, one of them as a dairy farmer and those experiences with them fills in the blanks. It takes a lot of creativity and decisivness to survive in dairy and family farming, margins are small but often the equity is high, so the temptation to sell out to big business is always there.