Who Milks America’s Cows?

Buy a pound of cheese or a carton of milk in the U.S., and it most likely hails from Wisconsin, the number-one cheese and number-two milk producer in the country. Often, that Wisconsin dairy product comes from a cow that was milked by an undocumented immigrant. Nationwide, 51% of dairy workers are immigrants. According to workers, farmers, and industry experts, more than three-fourths of these immigrants are undocumented. As a result, farms with immigrant employees produce the vast majority—79%—of the American milk supply. Many farmers attribute the dearth of American-born dairy workers to a cultural shift in the way we view the agriculture industry. "When I was growing up, the people that worked on farms were sons and daughters of other farmers,” says John Rosenow, a dairy farm owner from Wisconsin, in Jim Cricchi’s short documentary, Los Lecheros. Like much of the state’s $43 billion-a-year dairy industry, Rosenow’s farm now relies heavily on immigrant labor.