Prices paid to farmers per hundredweight (about 12 gallons) have fallen from nearly $20 a year ago to less than $11 in June.

It costs a farmer about $18 to produce a hundredweight of milk. In Vermont that translates to a loss of $100 per cow per month. So far this year, 33 farms have ceased operation in this one tiny state.

Meanwhile, the price you and I pay for milk in the grocery store has stayed about the same. Someone is clearly pocketing the difference. Perhaps that explains why profits at Dean Foods—the nation’s largest processor and shipper of dairy products, with more than 50 regional brands—have skyrocketed to more than double the same time last year.

We are losing our heritage farms and in the process we are losing a large part of the character of what it means to be a self-sufficient and independent American.

Corporate farming and govt subsidies are the biggest causes in this loss and NAFTA and the spread of GMO food products are the driving forces.