Mississippi's Cream Pitcher

While Mississippi produces a small fraction of the nation’s milk supply, the dairy industry is an economic engine in Walthall County, which produces more milk than any other part of the state.

The sun-beaten rim of southern Mississippi lends itself to images of vast, white-tufted cotton fields, ancient bluesmen strumming out laments on weathered porches, an entire landscape bathed in a sultry fog.

You might not picture dairy farming—but milk is the bread and butter of Walthall County.

While Mississippi produces a small fraction of the nation’s milk supply, the dairy industry is an economic engine in Walthall County, which produces more milk than any other part of the state. This earns it the unlikely distinction of being“The Cream Pitcher of Mississippi.”

So how is it that cows don’t whither away in the region’s seemingly infinite flatlands and all-encompassing summer heat? Well, for one thing, not all of southern Mississippi is delta: some stretches of gently rolling hills go on for miles. Also, the region has a temperate climate with cool, even cold, winters perfect for growing rye grass, a major staple for cows.

But farmers in Walthall County weren’t always in the cow business. Until the mid 1950s, most were cotton growers, according to Lamar Adams, county agriculture agent. They were accustomed to plowing with mules and picking cotton by hand—but as the industry became more mechanized, many found themselves unable to foot the bill to keep their farms viable.

“Rather than go to the expense of getting all that equipment for cotton, they converted to dairy farming,” says Adams, who adds that the farmers already had a built-in market, the so-called “New Orleans milk shed”—a metropolitan area relatively nearby with a large consumer base. A good interstate system wasn’t yet in place, and refrigerated trucks lacked today’s technical reliability, so Walthall County found itself in the lucrative position of being able to supply its neighboring city with lots of fresh milk.

By the mid-1970s, around 400 dairy farms operated in the county, most of them small family farms milking 35 to 40 cows each, Adams says. As the industry grew, many smaller farms went out of business, as other farms bought up their cattle and expanded. Today, the county has 62 Grade-A dairy farms, meaning that they primarily supply only drinking or “fluid” milk.

“All of our dairies are still family-type farms,” generating up to $16 million annually, says Teresah Ponders Caire, a conservationist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Tylertown.

Walthall County celebrates its dairy heritage each June during National Dairy Month with a festival (held the first Saturday of June), a farmer appreciation banquet, an invitational dairy show, and an annual farmers’ field day.

People also know the work ethic and values that farming instills in their lives.

“You still have so many people here who were raised on a family dairy farm,” Caire says. “They got up in the morning and helped milk the cows before they went to school, and they’ve talked about what a good experience it was for them learning the value of work and responsibility.”

Those lessons are being passed on now to 9-year-old Jessica Bacot and her two brothers. Jessica’s parents, Lori and Jay, have been dairying for 14 years, milking more than 200 cows three times a day with the help of only a small, tightly knit staff.

“You basically have to leave home to take a day off,” Lori Bacot says, but the hard work and discipline of dairy farming have been essential in her family’s lives. “There’s no better way to raise your kids.”

In each of her children, Bacot says the life has taken hold. And for one family dairy in Walthall County, the future already may be decided. “My daughter says that when she grows up she wants to be a farmer,” Bacot says.

Michael Depp is a regular American Profile contributor.

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