"Farm Town Futures," -Part 2: Milking The Milk Business
Wednesday, May 26, 2004SUSIE GHARIB: It takes only a handful of people to run a modern American farm these days. Huge tractors and harvesting machines have made a big difference from even 20 years ago. The result, fewer farmers and fewer people living in the dozens of once-thriving small farm towns in the Midwest. Tonight, in part two of our series "Farm Town Futures," Jeff Yastine talks with some people hoping to reverse that trend by seeding entrepreneurs alongside the wheat and soybeans.
JEFF YASTINE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: It`s 5:00 a.m., and time for the milking. Twice a day, gallons of high-grade milk are collected through these commercial dairy machines, except, it`s not cow`s milk. It`s sheep`s milk. Kim and Larry Curtis became entrepreneurs when they started this operation more than a decade ago. Unlike cow`s milk, sheep`s milk can be frozen because it has a high fat content. The Curtis` freeze it and ship it by the ton to distributors in the Northeast. But their business journey didn`t stop there. It turns out you can make a lot of things from sheep`s milk, including soap.
KIM CURTIS, OWNER, SHEPHERD`S DAIRY: Milk-based soaps are really good for your skin. The lactic acid in it is a natural exfoliant, and the butterfat helps to hold moisture in. Sheep milk has close to 8 percent butterfat.
YASTINE: So Kim started a second business in the family basement, creating soaps and skin lotions from sheep`s milk, pouring them into molds, and selling the products through a distributor to specialty retail shops.
CURTIS: It has been very successful. It has paid for the dairy, plus it has paid for all kinds of other things. Like we`re putting up a building for the soap right now. It has been very good for us.
YASTINE: The Great Plains were settled by farmers and by ranchers, but some think the future of the Midwest`s small farm towns, in the hope of avoiding further population loss, lies in encouraging the creation of small non-farm businesses instead. So alongside the ranchers and the farmers, entrepreneurs.
JOHN ALLEN, DIR., CENTER FOR APPLIED RURAL INNOVATION: Yes, we are seeing increases in entrepreneurship. We are seeing increases in not only the number of people starting up, but the number of employees that they`re supporting.
YASTINE: In Nebraska, the creation of non-farm small businesses accounts for about 70 percent of the net job growth in the state`s rural counties over the last three years. In communities where the population is measured in hundreds, not thousands, the creation of even a couple of jobs makes a difference.
JANELL ANDERSON EHRKE, EXEC. DIR., GROW NEBRASKA: It helps tremendously, these little cottage businesses, because they not only provide the pride and possibly, hopefully community awareness for that community, but, you know, all those little employees are the reason why that family doesn`t maybe pack up and go to a larger metropolitan area.
YASTINE: Experts say the Internet is another key reason why entrepreneurs can take root here. The Web lets them conduct business and sell products without needing to be close to interstate highways or large cities. In fact, many here see their location as a positive, not a negative.
ALLEN: There`s a very strong attachment to place in rural communities. It`s psychological, it`s economic, it`s social. Last year, we surveyed rural Nebraskans in a Nebraska rural poll, and only 4 percent said they wanted to leave. That`s 96 percent that say, I like this, I want to live here, I need to figure out how to create that future.
YASTINE: That`s something the Curtis family in their business, Shepherd`s Dairy, are already doing. Their efforts are helping their neighboring town, Anselmo, with a population of less than 200. When things get busy, friends and neighbors are hired to help with the packing and shipping.
CURTIS: It was helping a lot of farm wives be able to stay home with their children because it was a job they could do at home. It also gave a sense of pride to our community because our town was being recognized. Yes. There has been a lot of impact in the neighborhood.
YASTINE: The family hopes that impact will be felt for a long time to come. Jeff Yastine, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Anselmo, Nebraska.
