only to the volume which has moved 

 directly from farms to processing 

 plants. 



5. The Indirect Financial 

 Effects 



It should not be assumed that the 

 region studied would have about the 

 same dairy farms after complete con- 

 version to bulk assembly as it had 

 before conversion began. As noted 

 above, there are dairy farmers who, 

 faced with the need for converting 

 or going out of business, have sim- 

 ply gone out of business Also in the 

 course of the study it was generally 

 observed that, among the farmers 

 still using cans, the smaller ones were 

 the likeliest to say that a need for 

 converting or leaving the dairv busi- 

 ness would mean the latter. To the 

 extent that bulk assembly thus con- 

 tributes toward eliminating some of 

 the smallest dairy farms, it probably 

 will reduce somewhat the unit cost 

 of milk transportation, in as much as 

 the tank truck will then make fewer 

 stops in assembling a load. Whether 

 this impact will be. on the whole, a 

 good or bad thing is not a dollars- 

 and-cents question. 



6. Factors bevond Dollars 

 and Cents 



Indeed, a comprehensive look at 

 bulk assembly would be incomplete 



if it were solely in terms of dollars 

 and cents. At a time when milk 

 dealers are putting a heavy emphasis 

 on the quality of the milk they buy, 

 the effect of bulk assembly on quality 

 receives a good deal of attention. But 

 it is beyond the scope of this study 

 to appraise the beneficial or other 

 effect of bulk assembly on the quality 

 of milk. 



Another non-financial factor is 

 that, to many a dairy farmer with a 

 bulk tank, this new technology gives 

 a welcome relief from the drudgery 

 of handling cans, especially if — 

 having installed a bulk tank — he 

 then makes the further change of in- 

 stalling pipeline milking. A 40-quart 

 can. filled with milk, weighs about 

 100 pounds. To a farmer who handles 

 the cans himself, it may be less im- 

 portant to estimate what use he 

 could make of the time he would save 

 by not carrying cans, than it is to 

 know that a tank would ease his 

 back. 



In this study, the focus was meant 

 to be on the transportation aspect of 

 bulk assembly. Viewed as transpor- 

 tation, bulk assembly showed its 

 efficiency in the analysis undertaken 

 in this bulletin. But the other aspects 

 of bulk assembly must not be lost 

 from sight. 



XIV. Summary 



1. This study is based on inter- 

 views with 120 milk plant managers. 

 332 truckers and 1650 milk pro- 

 ducers in Maine, New Hampshire 

 and Vermont during 1955 and 1956. 

 This was a representative sample of 

 the dairy industry in the three state 

 region, by size and location of plants. 



2. An estimated 80 percent of 

 farms shipping their milk in cans, 



in Maine, New Hampshire and Ver- 

 mont were producing less than 1000 

 lbs. per day during their peak pro- 

 duction months. Of all farms, ship- 

 ping in cans, over four-fifths had 

 herds of fewer than 40 cows; for 

 farms shipping by tank, a some- 

 what smaller proportion had herds 

 below 40 cows. The farms discussed 

 in this study, therefore, were pre- 

 dominantly in this size group. 



49 



