Fewer dairy farms, fewer dairy cows and rising fuel costs make hauling milk a tough business, but that is what the Royal Farms Dairy Association does best.

The cooperative, formed in 1970 to serve dairy farms in the Edgeley area, is now the only milk hauler in south central North Dakota.

Royal Farms tankers pick up milk on the area’s dairy farms and haul it primarily to the AMPI Cheese Plant at Hoven, S.D., and, as of May 1, to the DairiConcepts Cheese Plant at Pollock, S.D.

Victor Mathern of Edgeley is the treasurer and bookkeeper. The other board members are President Vernon Gerber of Wishek, Vice President Darius Aberle of Linton, Secretary Arnold Vetter of Linton and Dale Rademacher of Edgeley.

Mathern said the million-dollar co-op now has 10 employees.

Scott Muller of Wishek is the manager and schedules the fleet of six semi-trucks. Wishek-based drivers include Kirby Kaseman, Kevin Vetter, Tony Vetter, Eric Piatz, Owen Huber, Chris Ophsal, Justin Goebel and Steve Meyer. Drivers based in Linton are David Nagel and Donavon Kooker. The co-op also has several part-time substitute drivers, and plans are to add another full-time employee.

Royal Farms has six milk pick up routes that stop at farms between the Missouri River and eastern North Dakota plus a few in South Dakota.

The semis pull 6-7,000-gallon tankers on the routes and, once loaded, they take the milk to Hoven or Pollock.

While there are not many dairy farms left in the area, those that are operating tend to be larger. Milk storage on the farms ranges from 300-3,000-gallon-tanks, so it doesn’t take many stops to fill the big tankers.

Fuel costs

With diesel fuel selling for over $4.50 per gallon, Muller has his hands full scheduling the trucks to save miles and fuel.

“Our trucks make about four and a half miles to the gallon, so at $4.50, it costs the co-op $1 per mile just for fuel,” Mathern said. “That doesn’t count the driver, the truck or other operating expenses.”

Mathern said that, until the big spikes in diesel prices, hauling charges were set for the year in January.

“Now, we do it every month, and our customers pay based on a fuel factor,” Mathern said. “Since we’re farmer owned, we try to keep prices down, but there is only so much you can do and keep operating.”

He said the co-op was started to meet the transportation needs of dairy farmers, and those needs have increased as dairy farm numbers have decreased.

“Not very long ago, there were enough stops on a route that a smaller truck could do the job, but that no longer pencils out,” he said.

Diversity

Fewer dairy farmers has also forced the co-op to diversify.

“We got to the point where we either had to go out of business or diversify,” Mathern said. “The board decided to add trailers so that we can haul grain, hay, machinery and other things. First, we did it for members, and now we do it for non-members as well. We do general over-the-road trucking, which is an expansion for us.”

Mathern said the additional loads ensure full-time jobs for the drivers, who otherwise might be laid off or have their hours cut during the traditional slower milk production months in the summer and winter.

“The trucks are busy year-round, which keeps us in the black so that we can continue serving farmers,” Mathern explained.

He said he and other members of the board are proud that the co-op has been able to change with the times and to continue serving farms.

“We owe a lot to our good drivers,” Mathern said, “and we are proud to be able to provide jobs in a rural area.”

The future

Mathern is troubled by the continued loss of family-operated dairy farms, and he believes the country’s cheap food policy will be bad for consumers in the long run.

He lamented that the dairy industry is going the way of the poultry and pork industries, toward factory-type operations and imports.

“Consumers need to ask themselves whether it is in their best interests to have food products imported from China or produced in domestic ‘food factories,’” Mathern said. “The best quality food comes from family farms, and quality costs a little more.”

He said he is an advocate of food labeling, which is addressed in part in the new farm bill, so that consumers know where their food originated and what they are buying.

“I’d like a label to be so specific that it says the product came from south central North Dakota,” Mathern said. “If it just says it came from Canada, for example, no one would know if Canada imported it from China or another country.”

Mathern said he became a dairy farmer not only because he loves agriculture but because he wanted to be his own boss and to have some variety in his work.

He said the larger dairies become, the more they are like factories where an employee does the same thing over and over again for eight hours.

“Royal Farms wants to continue serving farms long into the future and to do its best to help keep family farms viable by holding down transportation costs,” Mathern said.

History

Mathern has served on the Royal Farms Board since 1974, making him the most senior member.

“I used to be the youngest director, and now they tease me about being the oldest,” he laughed.

Mathern’s family originated in Emmons County and Logan County. His grandparents were Joseph and Elizabeth (Wald) Mathern and Matt and Kenegunda (Vetter) Wolf, who farmed in the St. Anthony and St. Michael’s communities east and north of Linton.

His parents were John J. and Christina (Wolf) Mathern, and the young couple moved to Edgeley in 1945 where he and his 12 brothers and sisters were born and raised. One of his brothers is State Sen. Tim Mathern of Fargo, who is running for Governor as the Democratic-NPL candidate.

John was one of the founders of Royal Farms. Other members were Sylvester Rademacher, Roland Cote, Clarence Heim, Wendelyn Senger, Herman Biegler and others. Victor and Dale are sons of founders.

Rademacher spearheaded the project in the late 1960s. That was when farmers were switching from cream cans to Grade A-type cooled bulk tanks. Local creameries were going out of business, and milk had to be hauled longer distances.

The co-op started out serving 40 farmers in a 25-mile radius of Edgeley with trucks that could haul 2,200 gallons of milk. (Today, there are four dairies in that area.)

Royal Farms hauled the milk to Cass Clay (named for Cass and Clay Counties in the Fargo area) creameries in Fargo and Aberdeen, S.D.

John visited with relatives from the Wishek area and learned they were interested in joining the co-op, so Royal Farms, which already had a proven track record, expanded east.

In the early 1970s, Cass Clay built milk dumping stations in Edgeley and Wishek to accommodate loads hauled by Royal Farms. Large tankers hauled the milk from the stations to wherever Cass Clay needed the milk.

“It made sense to the board that money could be saved for farmers if the co-op bought semis and hauled the milk for Cass Clay,” Mathern said.

Royal Farms bought their first tanker truck to make the runs. By the mid-1970s, the co-op had three farm pick up trucks and two tankers.

As Cass Clay expanded, so did the role of Royal Farms. Cass Clay bought the Hoven Cheese Plant and also the cheese plant in Wishek. The former Wishek plant is now the headquarters for the truck fleet.

“We not only haul to cheese plants but to the Cass Clay (AMPI) bottling plant in Fargo,” Mathern said. “The growing population in the Fargo area has meant an increasing demand for milk.”

The demand by the bottling plant has also grown because the state has only five or six bottling plants in operation. That compares with 30 a few years ago.

At its peak, Royal Farms had 70 members in the Wishek-Edgley area, and now there are 18.

At present, Royal Farms hauls milk for AMPI (Cass Clay) and Dairy Farmers of America (DFA, formerly Mid-America Dairymen) and a few NFO producers.

When the dumping stations were closed in Edgeley and Wishek in the 1990s, Royal Farms went exclusively to semi-tankers and hauled milk from the farm routes directly to Hoven and Fargo.

Now, Royal Farms picks up milk from AMPI as well as DFA members, and the two big dairy co-ops are looking at a system to combine some of the milk to save transportation costs.

From a small operation with one truck to pick up milk in the Edgeley area, Royal Farms has become the major milk hauler in south central North Dakota, and dairy farmers are glad to have a hauler with plans for the future.