# Sad story



## no nonsense (Jan 27, 2010)

I'm surprised that it hasn't been discussed here yet, about the poor New York dairy farmer who killed his cows then himself. Can't imagine what the guy was going through. Now this happens all the time, yet it never makes the national news, usually because there's not a juicy spin for the media to use, but this guy gave them a whopper by taking the cows with him.
IMO, Capt Scott Brown of the New York State Police requires some sensitivity training, and coming from me, that says something, for feeding into the media frenzy by giving them a quote like "the man was having personal problems". Well, captain, do you THINK so? And then the release of the man's name. Imagine how that all is affecting the family. At least the neighboring farmers who were there to help when needed, to bury the cows, had the respect and decency to not give the media any quotes which violated the family's confidentiality, other than to say that these are difficult times to be a farmer. Gotta love the media.
http://www.thedailymail.net/articles/2010/01/23/news/doc4b5a8594d27e5066242281.txt


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## hoosiergal (Jan 27, 2010)

I seen that on the news and what a sad situation it is when our  economy is not only destroying jobs but the very foundation of what America was built on and stands for. Without the farmers and pioneers we would be without food and stamina.


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## jhm47 (Jan 27, 2010)

As an EMT in a rural community where everyone knows one another, there is far too much of this going on.  Financial problems can always be solved, but killing yourself is NOT a viable solution.


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## hooligan (Jan 27, 2010)

This is really sad.  I have no idea why he would kill his cows...I wonder if he left a note.


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## ksalvagno (Jan 28, 2010)

That is horrible. How sad for the family. People don't understand that losing farming in the US is bad and the last thing we need is imported food.


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## hooligan (Jan 28, 2010)

Yes, but we don't even know if that's why he did it... Has there been any news on a note left or if neighbors said his dairy was failing? I hope they follow up on this story.


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## jhm47 (Jan 29, 2010)

With the prices that dairy farmers have been getting in the past year, it's inevitable that they had been losing a lot of money.  There is a large dairy near here that was losing $40,000 per day.  This has caused several of their suppliers to file bankruptcy.  The price of raw milk has improved somewhat lately, but it's barely at breakeven.

As to this farmer (and I'm speculating on this), he likely was facing foreclosure, and killed the cows to prevent his cows from being repossessed.  Many of us who have had our cows for a long while view them almost as members of our family.  When you have worked for a long time to build a very good herd, and put a lot of effort, sweat and blood into it, the thought of someone else taking them is just too much for some.  That is especially true when prices which are out of our control cause so much stress.  

No matter what, suicide is never the correct answer to anyone's problems.  We have had several farmers who killed themselves over my years as an EMT.  One was a fairly close friend.  I will never be able to think of him in a positive light after what he did to his own family (he killed himself on his wedding anniversary, in front of his wife and 12 year old son).  I went to high school with both him and his wife, and knew them quite well.  

Another farmer near here in N. D. was involved in a divorce case.  He had his 10 year old daughter for a weekend visit, and at the end of the weekend, he shot and killed his daughter, cleaned, and wrapped her body in plastic and placed her in a shed.  When his wife came to pick up the little girl, he shot her, again cleaned up the body and wrapped it and placed it next to their daughter.  Then, he shot their dog, and did the same thing.  After this, he called the sheriff's department, told them what he had done, and that he would be killing himself also.  They tried for a long time to talk him out of it, but when they approached him, he killed himself.  He had laid out his will, all his valuable paperwork, his insurance policies, and many other things on his kitchen table.  From what one of his relatives has told me, he had several hundred thousand $ in the bank.  WHY?


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## no nonsense (Jan 29, 2010)

There are the desperate and depressed, and then the just plain insane.
Whether this was his intention or not, the fact that he took the cows with him, unlike most others, at least drew some attention to the plight of the small dairy farmer.  Dairying like so many other ag industries today requires many to work on the scale of Walmart, when all they want to do is be like the corner store. They unfortunately don't often have much choice. It's either get big or get out.


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