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On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

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Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#211

Post by rightbyte »

elmomle wrote: post #142
thaumasiotes wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look into the effects of your ideas, and you'll see them wind up in rising prices. Your first example, excluding industry members who don't meet a particular standard, is one of the most typical forms of "colluding to raise prices" you could possibly think of, often expressed in the form of professional certification. The only things an economic organization can do are raise prices and lower costs. For a labor union,…

Setting standards and price fixing are different things. You can have fair competition within a marketplace with rules and standards. Price fixing is when all sellers agree to not sell below a certain price, which is a problem pretty much regardless of a marketplace's rules.

Standards might be a way to prevent a race to the bottom in quality. I think that is the most important thing.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#212

Post by maxerickson »

katbyte wrote: post #210
reedjosh wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing a resurgence of competition on quality too. I personally purchase organic grass fed glass bottled milk from local farms. Sounds snobby and onerous, but it's available at any Whole Foods. Quality food is truly worth it. Milk should not be a commodity. I know it's a bit more expensive, but I promise eating quality reduces the need for quantity. Our bodies are starving on this poorly made junk commodity food.

> Milk should not be a commodity neither should food, water, or shelter but here we are

Commodity literally means cheap and of consistent quality.

All of those things should be commodities, even if we choose to pay for them as a society rather than organizing the flow of goods using markets.

Put simply, if you are willing to buy it without sampling it, you think it's a commodity.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#213

Post by snarf21 »

nineplay wrote: post #95

I think he's glossing over the obvious. A friend of mine was just reminiscing about growing up in her family's dairy farm. Every Saturday morning, every Sunday morning, every Christmas you get up to take care of the cows. Feel sick? You've got to get up and take care of the cows. Want to go on vacation? Can't, there's no one you can leave the cows with. It's a hard life - maybe a satisfying life in some ways but ther…

I always joke with people that farming is a great half time job, just pick which 12 hours you want to work. I also think the only people that want to start farming are those that have never done it.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#214

Post by belorn »

corty wrote: post #21
belorn wrote: post #6

There were a news article this fall about how demand for more ecological produced dairy and meat has gone down while public opinion about ecological produced dairy and meat has gone up. The explanation provided there is that while people increasingly care more about how the dairy and meat is produced, those same people are also reducing their consumption. This seems to be an area where pollution control and stricter…

Also, ecological production has suffered several scandals, quality problems and marketing snafus that have lead to it decreasing in popularity or getting less ecological: E.g. there have been scandals around contaminated ecological ("Bio-" in Germany) eggs because chicken droppings more easily contaminate eggs when nests and cages are larger and more free-range. Ecological vegetables had acceptance problems because t…

I fully agree there exist problem with the ecological branding, and with eggs in particularly the standard is a bit shoehorned. In eu, ecological egg is mostly about how many chicken live per m^2, which is non-obvious by the name.

For non-ecological egg in EU, the minimum standard is 16 hens in the small space of 6 cm^2 minimum per hen and cage. That to me is animal cruelty. Ecological egg has a minimum requirement of 6 hens per m^2 when inside, no battery cages, access to daylight 24/7 and outside access for half the year and then with 4m^2 per hen.

There is also addition requirements for the feed but it feels so much less important than simply not having a cage where each hen has 6cm to stand on.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#215

Post by mcguire »

tengbretson wrote: post #124
Spooky23 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agriculture was the first victim of the red/blue phenomenon. Agricultural and trade policy is all about government supported grain industry. For the dairy farmer, they are stuck between regulatory reform that dramatically increases the supply of milk by creating a national market, while their downstream supply chain partners are allowed to consolidate and form monopolies, because American legal theory is insane. I li…

> The aquifers that support Midwest grain are being depleted An overwhelming majority of farm land in the Midwest is not irrigated, with Nebraska being the only significant outlier.

"The Ogallala Aquifer underlies parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. From wheat and cows to corn and cotton, the regional economy depends almost exclusively on agriculture irrigated by Ogallala groundwater. But according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), producers are extracting water faster than it is being replenished, which means that parts of the Ogallala Aquifer should be considered a nonrenewable resource."

In large areas, the water level has dropped more than 50 feet. (https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/nation...)

Each of the circles in these satellite images is an irrigation system. Many are a mile in diameter.

* https://goo.gl/maps/5m82TyPRSHnQ2xCx9

* https://goo.gl/maps/wveD2BaP8Stp66yw7

* https://goo.gl/maps/yXL2gWEXq9fmz4jj6

* https://goo.gl/maps/VbhjEKYgWhaqgEHR6

* https://goo.gl/maps/erC76vZx34Rhzt9VA

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#216

Post by mcguire »

AshleighBasil wrote: post #197
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #73

unfortunately the cow seems out of the barn for reasons other than legislation being missing. Farmers have not adapted to changes in conditions and they had time to do so. The point of a union should not be to collute to raise prices. The point of a union should be to pool market power and resources to break monopolies in creameries, or pollution. Any farmer should have seen the writing on the wall to have 1 creamery…

>reported farms using illegal labor. I'm from Mexico, but I've always suspected the reason the US Democratic Party supports immigration is precisely because a lot of big corporations want to drive down the price of labor. They piggyback on antiracist and antinationalist activism to advance the interests of big agriculture. If I was a big agro, I'd invest in both parties. The Republicans to remove regulation that help…

"If I was a big agro, I'd invest in both parties. The Republicans to remove regulation that helps big agro compete, and the Democrats to implement regulation that prevents small agro from competing."

They do.

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/cargill-inc/summary?id=D000...

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#217

Post by anonAndOn »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #202
jasonv wrote: post #154

I visited a dairy in Utah a couple of summers ago. 130 cows, 3 employees. It's a fully automated facility, using equipment from Germany. The cows enter a stall, the machine milks them, gives them a treat, they move on. Employees get a text if a cow hasn't milked itself in a while... usually a tap on their shoulder is enough to get them to walk over to the machine. Even yet, the person giving the tour said they don't…

I recall hearing that there is a glut of milk in the US because there are just too many dairy cows. Is this still true?

Don't forget rBGH.[0] Canada and the EU banned it, but thanks to big Pharma, you can get still get hormone adulterated milk in the US of A.

[0]https://www.organicvalley.coop/blog/rBGH-decoded-what-is-bov...

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#218

Post by mcguire »

reedjosh wrote: post #148
duxup wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately the problem is the price...

I'm seeing a resurgence of competition on quality too. I personally purchase organic grass fed glass bottled milk from local farms. Sounds snobby and onerous, but it's available at any Whole Foods. Quality food is truly worth it. Milk should not be a commodity. I know it's a bit more expensive, but I promise eating quality reduces the need for quantity. Our bodies are starving on this poorly made junk commodity food.

The other half of the article's issue: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery...

"Between 1960 and 1998, the average share of disposable personal income spent on total food by Americans, on average, fell from 17.0 to 10.1 percent, driven by a declining share of income spent on food at home."

In 2019, it was 9.5%, with modest decreases on spending for food at home and increases in spending on food away from home.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#219

Post by OldHand2018 »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #202
jasonv wrote: post #154

I visited a dairy in Utah a couple of summers ago. 130 cows, 3 employees. It's a fully automated facility, using equipment from Germany. The cows enter a stall, the machine milks them, gives them a treat, they move on. Employees get a text if a cow hasn't milked itself in a while... usually a tap on their shoulder is enough to get them to walk over to the machine. Even yet, the person giving the tour said they don't…

I recall hearing that there is a glut of milk in the US because there are just too many dairy cows. Is this still true?

Yes, but I think it depends on the location. At my local grocery store in Chicago, milk has been $2 per gallon ($0.53 per liter) for years, as long as you buy 2 gallons or more. When I was in Florida for a few months, I couldn't find it for less than $3.79 per gallon ($1 per liter) anywhere.

The cheaper milk in the upper midwest tastes better too, as it all comes from Wisconsin and Indiana where the cows can feed on green grass that grows naturally because it gets plenty of rain, etc.

Re: On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

#220

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

mcguire wrote: post #215
tengbretson wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The aquifers that support Midwest grain are being depleted An overwhelming majority of farm land in the Midwest is not irrigated, with Nebraska being the only significant outlier.

" The Ogallala Aquifer underlies parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. From wheat and cows to corn and cotton, the regional economy depends almost exclusively on agriculture irrigated by Ogallala groundwater. But according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), producers are extracting water faster than it is being replenished, which means that parts o…

Most of those states are not considered to be in the Midwest.
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