what a strange point. "the obvious" is not that there's concentration of power but that farming is hard? what about small farms where many people are happy to continue working because they find it fulfilling?
Anyone who enjoys their job should work for free? How are they meant to pay bills? What are you saying?
im providing a counter-example to the OP's point, and saying that people choosing not to remain farmers is not a sufficient explanation for decline in the number of small farms. the author clearly proposes many other reasons. see other responses to the message.
I understand that you're probably estimating bare minimum costs, but getting started for half a million dollars is actually way more affordable than I imagined you would describe. That's comparable to what some people pay for a middle class suburban home near a lot of the mid-sized metropolitan areas around the United States.
That’s literally the cost I just paid lol But yes, $500k is about the minimum. Plus ~40 acres. For grass fed beef you can raise probably 20 heads and buy supplementals. You might only make $5-10k up to maybe $30k (buying hay or leasing other land to grow feed) profit initially. BUT it’s not a ton of work, really only feeding the cattle every other day, doing injections on the cattle and cutting / bailing hay 2-3 time…
> Average is probably 10 hrs of work a week
> closer to $60k profit on that 40 acre farm
> Food prices go up during inflation, so my farm is worth more
> my loan will be easier to pay off from the production and be worth more when I sell
> I can work a full-time job besides the 2 week harvest season
Jesus Christ, I’m sorry to say this but you are in for a rude, violent awakening. Best of luck.
As a vegan, I am concerned about the cruel treatment of farm animals. Losing family farms only aggravates the problem in this price race against the bigger actors in dairy production. While dairy is not strictly necessary for grown ups, I recognise that it will be present for some time so we should care about how it is produced. Dairy should be more expensive than it is now, similar to what happens to meat.
>As a vegan, I am concerned about the cruel treatment of farm animals. For a somewhat malicious counter point... if the entire world stopped using dairy and beef, the cow as we know it would quickly go extinct. They have no natural habitat, they can't take care of themselves, and they make really lousy pets. It is a somewhat similar story with elephants. They make lousy pets as well and selling ivory is illegal. So t…
> For a somewhat malicious counter point
I don't think you understand what vegans (typically) actually object to.
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.
I think you mean if you are willing to buy it regularly without sampling. We bought a few brands prior to our current buying pattern. I am not willing to buy milk without sampling. Currently we have two that we like. Basically, one has extra fat added, but the other comes in a reusable (literally return for reuse) glass bottle. If only I could get both.
Yes, I mean willingness to grab a container off the shelf and buy it without sampling, not the process of establishing preferences.
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…
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…
There is another danger that is not being touched upon.
Once things consolidate, the overall system becomes massively more fragile.
Think 2008 with a few very big multinational banks. A crisis basically brought the market to its knees. Contrast this to restaurants.
We have had covid restrictions for months, but yet, 2/3rd of the independently owned are finding ways to operate. They are the epitome of resilience.
Imagine if we had a big problem and a bunch of monsantos failed. 2008 style collapse...but this time of the food supply...
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…
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've helped with an IT project for several large dairies in the US (1,000+ cows each). Like you said the cows practically milk themselves. They walk by themselves into the milk barn, one person attaches the automatic milking machines to each cow as they walk into a stall. The milking machine automatically drops off the udders when the cow is done being milked and they walk back out to their pen on their own. I was told the cows like to be milked because it's uncomfortable for them when they are full of milk. Most dairies milk their cows 3 times a day around the clock. One of the dairies I've been to has a round milk barn with a rotating floor with about 100 milking stalls around the outside edge, so the guy attaching the milking machines to the cows doesn't even have to move. By the time the cows rotate all the way around the building they are done, the milking attachments drop off and the cows walk out the door on their own and go back to their pens to eat. I've shown up at these places a few times unannounced and spent 30 minutes walking around looking for a person (other than the guy in the milk barn) to let me into the office. Many times there's two people at the entire dairy: the guy in the milk barn and a guy driving a tractor that drops the feed for the cows along the sides of their pens. Each pen has artificial wood floors kind of like trex decking material and sprinklers in the roof of the pen that run automatically several times a day to wash away the poop which drains into holding ponds. The holding ponds have machinery just like a waste water treatment plant: the solids settle to the bottom of the ponds, and the water is used for corn crops that are fed back to the cows. The manure is dredged from the holding ponds, dried, and distributed on the fields with tractors to fertilize the corn. The majority of food fed to the cows is corn silage, which is the entire corn plants ground up and composted/fermented in large covered piles for a while to make it easier for the cows digest. This makes the whole setup fairly self sustaining. If they need to, the dairies will buy feed, but they try to minimize that because it increases their expenses. Most of these large dairies own thousands of acres around the dairy that is almost entirely dedicated to growing corn to feed the cows. After being to these kinds of setups it's clear to me that there's no way a small operation could compete. If they could replace those last two employees with machines, they would.
On one point the article has made. Canadians are really really unhappy with their milk system, they have some of the highest priced milk in the entire world and they despise it. "probably through a supply management program similar to what Canada has" is a nonstarter for cityfolk. It would mean $4 milk.
I don’t buy dairy at all because of how expensive it is here. A cheap block of store brand cheddar cheese costs $5. A 2L carton of milk is around $3, or I can get a 4L jug for $5. A small container of sour cream is $3. A single 100g Greek yoghurt cup is $1. Huge waste of money. Big dairy in Canada is really powerful to the point where it’s impossible to get elected as Conservative party leader without supporting the…
That's equal to or less than what I pay in the US. Seems to me the Canadian system doesn't drive up costs that much.
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'm pretty sure the fact that it's impossible to turn a profit in any of the "family" small scale dairy farms is a little more important than how hard the work is. And hard back-breaking work is not unique to farming. Plenty of restaurants or other small businesses basically run off owners and family giving dozens of hours of labor every week "for free"
> I'm pretty sure the fact that it's impossible to turn a profit in any of the "family" small scale dairy farms is a little more important than how hard the work is.
Why exactly is that important? I could not turn a profit running a family plastic casting business in the U.S. either. It's just not something that can be done competitively on a small scale. Seems like milk production isn't either. That's sad for people who want to do that as a profession. It's also sad that writing doesn't pay enough to employ everyone who wants to be writers, painting everyone who would rather paint, etc. Why is that a policy problem (besides the need to ensure these people have a soft landing in a destination profession that is economically viable)?
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…
> is precisely because a lot of big corporations want to drive down the price of labor
Doesn't immigration also create industry which then creates jobs?