Fair Oaks Farms, Indiana

Fair Oaks Farms, in northern Indiana, is one of the largest dairies in the nation. It is close enough to metropolitan Chicago to attract school children and the public for tours.  It is increasingly common for dairy operations to develop a public face, though most of the 30,000 cows at Fair Oaks are in a few dozen large sheds, far from the playschool farm displays and gift shops, off limits to the public. Dairy products seem to be everywhere in our diets. Americans consume more than 80 lbs of cream, butter, yogurt, ice cream, and cheese, per person per year, and another six gallons of liquid milk. There are nine million milk cows in the USA, at 65,000 dairy farms. California leads with 39 billion pounds of milk generated per year, followed by Wisconsin, with 25 billion. New York is third, with 12 billion. Many of the dairy staples, such as milk, butter, cream, yogurt, and cheese, are processed and packaged at the dairy farms themselves. Mostly though, it occurs in industrial-scale creameries and processing centers, supplied with milk from dairies large and small.