“Janice and Joe Pimentel, who are 52 and 58, respectively, decided to follow their families’ dairy farm tradition when they bought their 25-acre property in Atwater two decades ago. Their sons, now 21 and 30, decided not to go into the business, and the Pimentels thought they would retire one day and convert the farm into an almond orchard.

How they lost their farm, once a thriving business with some 200 cows, is not a simple sub-prime mortgage story. It has to do with a drop in the price of milk, a spike in the cost of feed, some bad luck and, yes, a five-year refinance loan with an interest rate of 12 percent.

On top of their financial problems, in 2007, Joe’s father developed cancer. With such a heavy personal and financial burden, the Pimentels could not give the farm the attention it required.

“At 58, I’m starting over,” said Joe, who has started working for the county Department of Agriculture, setting pest traps.

The Pimentels’ farm is a ghostly sight, with its empty stalls, the flapping roof on the main barn, and weeds where flowers used to grow. Soon, the Pimentels will take their pets — two horses and three dogs — to the modest house Joe’s father left them, about a mile away.

The Pimentels doubt their property will ever be a family dairy farm again. Maybe a developer will grab it, Janice said, “for when housing grows again in Merced, someday.”

More by AP writer Ethel Nieves