Milk Men Documentary Delivers

Milk Men: The Life and Times of Dairy Farmers: Simplistic notions about dairy farming melt like butter in a frying pan in Jan Haaken’s documentary “Milk Men.”  The 2016 film allows viewers into the barns, businesses, and family rooms of a range of dairy farmers in the Pacific Northwest. From the 100-cow organic operation of Mesman Farm in La Conner, Washington, up to the 36,000-cow farm of Threemile Canyon Dairy in Oregon, Haaken looks at the complexity of business, family, and the modern food-production system.Unlike a lot of documentaries about food, the film does not definitively answer the question of what’s the “best” for farmers, animals, and consumers. Rather, it prepares the viewer to have an intelligent conversation about the business, ethics, and culture of dairy farming. And it ensures that the farmer’s voice is front and center.Haaken is a clinical psychologist and emeritus professor of psychology at Portland State University. She uses documentary filmmaking as a way to bring community psychology issues into the classroom. Her work has focused on jobs that cause unusual amounts of stress. That dairy farmers fall into the category of stressed workers should be a pretty big hint that things are not what they may seem to be in the countryside.Though the farmers and their families are universally calm in demeanor, the strains of their work show. There’s the competition and business decisions that have wide ranging implications, such as “will I own the farm this time next year.” There’s the demanding and absolutely rigid schedule of milking, though technology is helping with that, in some cases. There’s pressure to “get big or get out.” There are long-term capital needs, short-term bills, and intermediate-term issues of succession and family relationships.