Three times a day, some 400 black-and-white Holstein cows line up to have their udders cleaned and milked — a largely automated process that takes place 365 days a year at Alumim, a religious kibbutz located less than four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Gaza border in southern Israel.

After milking, the animals are returned to their large barns, passing the kibbutz housing for foreign workers along the way.

The facility produces 5.3 million liters (over 1.4 million gallons) of milk per year and employs eight people, four of whom are foreign farmhands.

Like other dairies, it earns NIS 2.47 (80 cents) per liter, as set by the state’s Dairy Council and updated quarterly to reflect fluctuating overhead costs, with a margin for profit.

Now, however, Alumim’s almost 50-year-old dairy, like dozens of others in farming collectives and cooperatives across Israel, says it is worried about its future.

As part of a broader plan to lower the cost of living, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wants to disband the centralized coordination that has characterized the dairy industry since the state’s founding. He plans to slash milk production in Israel by a third, cut the price per liter by 15 percent, and abolish tariffs of up to 40% to flood the Israeli market with imported dairy products. The government approved his plan in December. It now needs Knesset approval.

Avi Fraiman, 69, a father of five who has worked for the Alumim dairy for 43 years and is the outgoing CEO, said, “We fear having to produce 30% less milk, for 15% less per liter, while having the same outlays. I don’t know whether we will survive.

Alumim’s dairy is one of 660 countrywide, each of which employs an average of seven workers, according to the Dairy Council, which regulates the dairy sector.

In total, the dairy industry, which produces 1.53 billion liters of milk annually, employs some 15,000 workers, including veterinarians, feed suppliers, and truck drivers.

Alumim’s dairy, established in 1976, has weathered many ups and downs, not least the invasion of Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023.

CCTV footage shows gunmen firing wildly at the dairy’s entrance before going on to the foreign workers’ living quarters, where they massacred 12 Thai farm........

© The Times of Israel