But the 82-year-old Cameron _ who still drives a tractor and supervises her Hanford dairy _ is on the brink of losing her life's work. She can no longer pay the bills. Her bank has classified her loan as distressed. And she can't afford enough feed for her 900 milking cows and 1,000 heifers.
"I have been in this business for 57 years and I have never been in financial trouble like I am right now," said Cameron, who runs the Atsma-Cameron Dairy with her two sons. "I'm on the verge of bankruptcy. It's horrible and inexcusable."
"I don't think there's a milk producer in the state who is profitable right now," said Michael Marsh, CEO of Western United Dairymen.
Since 2008, California has lost nearly 300 dairies, with 1,668 remaining as of January, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. There are no official estimates on how many dairies have shuttered in 2012 _ but interviews with dairymen and experts indicate several hundred dairies could be in danger of going under.
"It's been like a floodgate," said Riley Walter, a Fresno-based agricultural bankruptcy lawyer who has worked on 58 cases of dairies in financial trouble this past year _ from bankruptcies, to liquidations, to operations taken over by receivers.
Calif Dairies Going Broke Due to Feed, Milk Prices: CLICK FOR MORE..Since 2008, California has lost nearly 300 dairies, with 1,668 remaining as of January, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. There are no official estimates on how many dairies have shuttered in 2012 _ but interviews with dairymen and experts indicate several hundred dairies could be in danger of going under.
"It's been like a floodgate," said Riley Walter, a Fresno-based agricultural bankruptcy lawyer who has worked on 58 cases of dairies in financial trouble this past year _ from bankruptcies, to liquidations, to operations taken over by receivers.
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