And then there were two ....

PEA RIDGE — Two dairies in Pea Ridge are all that are left in northeast Benton County of the more than 200 that were in Benton County 40 years ago.

J.C. Beaver and his brother Randy operate a dairy on Lee Town Road.

Brentley Wilkerson and his sons, Tyler and Trey, operate a dairy off Schrader Road.

“In the 1970s, there were 200 to 300 dairies in Benton County,” Brentley said. “Now, there are 17 to 18 left.”

In 1986, there was a federal dairy buyout. Several dairy farmers in the area took advantage of that and sold their herds.

The elder Wilkerson said he benefited from that and was able to buy dairy cows inexpensivelywhen he began milking in 1986.

“The big buyout started it,” Wilkerson said. “I’d just been milking a year when people started selling cattle. “That was the biggest catastrophe for the small dairies.”

The milk from both the Wilkerson and Beaver farms goes to either Kraft in Bentonville or Highland Dairy in Fayetteville.

Not enough milk is produced in Benton County to supply the demand, so much is shipped in from the southwestern United States, both Beaver and Wilkerson said.

“My biggest fear is if we get a contamination of feed, we won’t have enough milk for the eastern part of the U.S.,” Wilkerson said.

Beaver, who also serves as the secretary of the Arkansas Dairy Cooperative Association, saidthe number of dairies has declined.

“Northwest Arkansas was a milk surplus area,” Beaver said, adding “now, it’s a deficit.”

“The dairymen are getting older. Some people don’t want to work this hard,” Beaver said.

He said the milk in the stores comes from Texas and New Mexico. “The milk has a lot of miles on it by the time it gets here.”

“Unless you own the property, it’s cost prohibitive to begin a dairy,” Beaver said. His family has been milking on the familyfarm since they moved here in the 1950s, he said.

“It’s been a continuous decline. As people got older, the operations became smaller.”

“The public needs to be aware of where their milk comes from,” Beaver said.

The Beaver dairy herd ofmore than 200 cows produces about 15,000 pounds of milk a day. A gallon of milk is about 8.6 pounds.

“If you’re going to make it work, you have to do the majority of it yourself,” he said, adding that his operation is now large enough that he does employee help.