WASILLA -- A shiny silver Matanuska Maid milk tanker on its regular run drove slowly past a crowd of more than 100 farmers, their friends and politicians Friday in the driveway of Havemeister Dairy Farm.

Nicole Trytten, 20, who lives and works on a farm at Point MacKenzie, said that truck will roll by her family's farm only nine more times. The final day for milk pickup is July 3.

After that the cows will produce milk but the farmers will either "dump it down the drains or spray it on the fields," Trytten said. With no money to feed them or turn on the milking machines, the cows won't last long.

The crowd gathered at the farm on the corner of Bogard and Trunk Roads to protest the decision to close the state-run Matanuska Maid dairy on July 7.

Protesters, one dressed as a cow, waved signs: "Save the Cows," "Audit the Maid," and "Thanks, Gov. Palin." Gov. Sarah Palin, who Monday urged the Creamery Board to reconsider its decision to close the dairy, gave a short address.

"Things are kind of a mess right now with what's happening with Mat Maid and we're going to clean it up," Palin said. "We can revitalize it and that's what our commitment is."

Creamery Board chairman Mac Carter, in a June 8 letter addressed "to the Palin administration" and posted on the dairy Web site, blamed the dairy closure on high shipping and fuel costs, Department of Homeland Security regulations and competition from Outside dairies. He wrote that Matanuska Maid lost $600,000 this year as of April and expected losses to grow to $2.4 million by December.

Carter said by phone Friday he was not answering questions from the media and gave instead a prepared statement saying he is trying reach Palin.

"It is time for us to stop talking through the media and start talking to each other," he said. He said he hopes the governor can sit down with the Creamery Board soon and "see if we can't come to an amicable decision on this."

Bob Havemeister said he's been farming his whole life and producing milk since the 1950s.

Matanuska Maid buys most of the 12,500 pounds of milk his 89 active milk cows produce every two days. If the dairy shuts down those cows will have to go to slaughter, he said. Fifty years of breeding will be lost.

As for his farm, "it might turn into a subdivision," Havemeister said. "What else would I do?"

Asked what he wanted from Matanuska Maid or the state, he said, "I'm not asking for anything."

Havemeister said he doesn't want a handout.

"I just want a market for my milk," he said.

A small bottling plant processing nothing but local milk would keep local dairy farmers in business, he said.

"I know people will buy it," he said. Even if the milk costs more, people want to buy local, Havemeister said.

Though rumors circulated, official word only came down last week that the dairy would close, said Havemeister's daughter-in-law, Franci Havemeister, who organized Friday's rally.

Palin this week proposed limiting production at the dairy to Alaska milk. But Matanuska Maid officials said such a plan would not be feasible. It would utilize but a fraction of their facilities, which currently process milk mostly from the Lower 48.

Most of those gathered Friday said that closing Matanuska Maid would be the end of the dairy industry in Alaska. Four Valley farms and two in Delta Junction will have to close if they can't sell their milk, the farmers said.

And with it will go the infrastructure and businesses that support farmers, like barley farmers and feed stores, said state Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Wasilla.

"If we lose what we've got today we'll never get back to where we're at," Neuman told the crowd.

Craig Trytten, a Point MacKenzie dairy farmer and critic of the dairy closure, said the dairy industry in Alaska enjoys great support. Many of those in attendance had only heard about the rally the day before, he said.

"This is what you see after 20 hours of effort," he said.

Some but not all were farmers, and not all of those were dairy farmers. Some were just concerned residents or friends of farmers. Others, Trytten said, were involved with a program his daughter Nicole runs selling shares of what's called a "condo cow" to people who want to collect fresh milk.

But one group, he said, made him particularly proud. Members of the National Farmer's Union, a family farmer advocacy group, were in Anchorage for a meeting.

Trytten is a member, he said, and he drove to Anchorage and asked them to come. They hopped on a tour bus and drove to Havemeister's farm.

"I'll just say that it's vitally important that you keep the dairy industry here in Alaska," Farmer's Union president Tom Buis of Washington, D.C., told the crowd.

Find Andrew Wellner online at adn.com/contact/awellner or call 352-6710.

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