On a cold, sunny day in December, a row of dairy cows chews through a precise mix that contains corn, alfalfa and soybeans at Crave Brothers Farm outside of Waterloo.

Those crops, grown on 3,000 acres of farmland, feed Crave Brothers' 2,200 cows. In turn, the cows produce enough milk for the roughly 15,000 pounds of cheese coming out of the farm’s cheese factory each day.

"Our story is crops to cows, cheese to the consumer," said George Crave, who runs the farm with his three brothers. 

But there are costs to producing dairy products.