Eli Saslow writes:

Their farm was called Butter Ridge, 326 acres of pastoral valleys and rolling hillsides just south of the New York State border. From his house at the top of the ridge, Brad’s father, Brian, could turn in every direction and see land that his family had once farmed. His grandfather Ivan Watson had run a large dairy operation just to the west, near the Susquehanna River. Ivan’s nine children had all gone on to become dairy farmers, setting up their own herds within a few miles. Brian’s father had milked Jersey cows. So had all of Brian’s uncles, his aunts, his cousins and two of his siblings. Only one brother had gone his own way and rebelled against family tradition, by choosing to milk Holstein cows instead.

Now it was the evening before the auction, and Brian stood on his porch and looked out at farms that were dry, or bankrupt, or leased out to hunting clubs, or standing empty with the roofs falling in.

The auctioneer, Adam Fraley, was waiting for them at the barn early the next morning, five hours before the sale. He had already numbered each one of their cows, printed auction catalogs and erected a tent outside the barn. In the last decade, he’d helped run dispersal auctions for Brian’s brother, his cousin and his uncle, and now Fraley led Brian and Brad through the barn to evaluate their herd one last time. Fraley nudged each cow to its feet and made final notes in his catalog.

“One-fourteen is fresh,” he said. “Eleven needs to go dry. What’s the breeding update on 61?”

“Are you talking about Ruby or Melon?” Brian asked.

“Sixty-one.”

“You mean Ruby? You’re losing me.”

“Sixty-one.”

“Name! I need a name!” Brian said. He took a breath and held up his hand. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“I get it,” Fraley said. “I know it’s a hard day. You’re doing great. Believe me, I’ve seen the worst of the worst.”

He had auctioned more than 50,000 cows as he traveled across the country during the dairy sell-off of the past decade. Some were corporate herds of 1,000 or show cattle that brought up to a million dollars, but often Fraley had been the last visitor at family barns like the Watsons’, where he auctioned cows, machinery and sometimes even the property itself for a 10 percent cut. The average Pennsylvania family dairy farm was earning about $20 for every 100 pounds of milk — and that same amount now cost more than $30 to produce. He’d seen farmers who tried to hang on by neglecting their equipment, underfeeding their cows, extending their hours and borrowing tens of thousands they could never repay.

His career had unfolded against a steady backdrop of bankruptcies, accidents and tragedies: the New York farmer who shot all 51 of his dairy cows and then turned the shotgun on himself; an Amish father who suffocated with his two sons after becoming trapped in their grain silo. In 2018, a Wisconsin farmer had sold his cows at auction, taken a part-time job at a grocery store and then killed himself with a note in his pocket. “I’m a dairy farmer,” it read. “I want my old life back, but I can’t get it anymore. Everything I do fails.”

Farm bankruptcies across the country had risen 55 percent in 2024, 46 percent in 2025, and another 70 percent so far in 2026 as nearly a third of the world’s fertilizer exports were impacted by conflicts in the Strait of Hormuz. Lately, Fraley had begun counseling farmers on how to emotionally endure the aftermath of an auction, suggesting potential hobbies or strategies for debt consolidation.

“Tomorrow’s going to be the hardest day when you see the barn empty,” he told Brian. “It’ll feel like a death, but just think of all that freedom. Go out for breakfast. See the world. There’s life after cows.”

“A part of me will be relieved,” Brian said. “My whole life, people have kept telling me it’ll get better. The truth is it never does.” [Continue reading…]