Empty barns: Prolonged low milk prices pressuring dairy farms to fold

There wasn't really a last straw that made Billy Euerle walk away from his Garfield dairy farm last year.Things had been bad for several years.He trudged through his days, milking Hot Chocolate and Caroline and Brooke and all the others, barely sleeping. Facing terrible milk prices and crushing debt, he struggled to find motivation. Every chore seemed to take twice as long, and his whole family was feeling the stress. To top it off, severe storms in 2017 ravaged several farm buildings."You just had to fool yourself every day that you were going to make it," said Euerle, a father of four. "As a farmer, your mentality is that things will get better, but it didn't."Dairy farms around the region are struggling with prolonged low prices. While the market often takes dairy prices for a joy ride, the peaks and valleys typically come quickly. This time, however, farmers are entering their fourth year of low prices.