Cheese-maker stepping up to help save 4 family farms as dairy crisis deepens

Not many people get to save a family farm, let alone four of them, but cheese-makers Jay and John Noble may do just that.  The Racine County brothers are reopening the Beechwood cheese plant near Adell, in Sheboygan County, that's been closed for about a year. By most standards it’s a small plant, a two-man operation where the Nobles will make high-end organic cheese. But for a handful of dairy farms that were about to lose their milk buyer for the second time in two years, the plant is a lifeline that may keep them in business.The four farms, roughly in the Mayville area, were in a tough spot when Westby Cooperative Creamery, of Westby, said it was dropping them this month. "We must have called 50 to 75 plants and couldn't find anybody looking for milk," said Tom Weidmeyer, who milks about 120 cows. "I have never seen anything like this in my life," he said, including the farm crisis of the 1980s that wiped out scores of small dairy operations. But even that stemmed from other economic factors, not a surplus of milk.