Dairy farmers forced to dump milk as
demand drops amid coronavirus closures
NBC News,
by
Vaughn Hillyard
,
Maura Barrett
&
Matt Wargo
Original Article
Posted By: Pluperfect,
4/14/2020 4:41:59 AM
Dairy farmers have faced a crash in milk prices amid the coronavirus pandemic in the last month when restaurants, workplaces and schools shuttered across the country. Many dairy operations have even dumped their cows’ milk as the initial splash of at-home consumption has tapered off and the restaurant industry has nearly disappeared. “You can't shut down cows. You can't turn them off like a faucet,” Zoey Nelson, 27, a sixth-generation dairy farmer in Waupaca, Wisconsin, told NBC News. “Just to see it literally going down the drain — it's devastating.”
Reply 1 - Posted by:
BirdsNest 4/14/2020 6:34:01 AM (No. 378856)
I don't get it, our stores are always out of milk.
11 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
jacksin5 4/14/2020 7:34:17 AM (No. 378897)
Process it as either condensed of powdered milk, then send it to the 3rd World in lieu of giving taxpayer money to dictators. Feed the poor.
20 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Tanker76 4/14/2020 8:11:58 AM (No. 378954)
If there is so much of it, then why hasn't the price in stores dropped, like gas prices have ?
8 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Peregrine 4/14/2020 8:38:36 AM (No. 378999)
Make cheese.
12 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
jinx 4/14/2020 8:45:48 AM (No. 379011)
Send it to the people that our politicians say are starving.
4 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
kidsmom 4/14/2020 9:01:38 AM (No. 379033)
Many years ago, there was a problem with overproduction of milk. Instead of pouring it down drains, I seem to remember that the government made butter and cheese and sold it to low-income families. We were one of the low-income families, and it was the best butter and cheese I've ever tasted. I think both came in 1-lb blocks. Wonder why that's not an option now??
9 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
steph_gray 4/14/2020 9:13:47 AM (No. 379058)
Conservative Treehouse has an excellent article on this today (4/14).
The reason they have to dump is not (overall) "reduced demand" - now there's a piece of insanely fake news from China-lovin' NBC!
It's the packaging, stupid NBC. The supply chain can't keep up with the type of packaging needed (and mandated!) for sale to groceries instead of to restaurants where the demand used to be coming from.
The real answer is to end the shutdown asap and get the restaurants open. Even after that, President Trump may need to relax some regulations to allow consumers to re-use existing containers for milk and eggs, something like that.
NBC is a disgrace.
11 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
rabblerouser 4/14/2020 9:17:07 AM (No. 379065)
We are in dangerous territory now, folks. In that great American literature classic, "The Grapes of Wrath", there is a chapter describing farmers destroying food in the midst of children starving. This has happened before. Because they can't take any profit from the food, it is destroyed.If you haven't read that book, I urge you too now. We all may be living it before too much longer.
3 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
felixcat 4/14/2020 9:47:44 AM (No. 379102)
Another screwed top commodity support program compliments of Uncle Sam.
5 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
MDConservative 4/14/2020 10:45:35 AM (No. 379178)
The basic problem with the free enterprise system is that it takes two to make a deal. So the dairy farmer produces his milk by the truckload. His contracted purchaser doesn't want it. Now what? The farmer can't make it into powdered milk, or marketable cheese or condensed milk or anything else. So, let the government buy it...and do what with it?
Like any other industry, dairy and other farming needs to adjust its production to meet demand. Instead, it largely depends on government to artificially support higher prices. Suppose the auto industry operated like that, with government buying excess Fords, Chevys and Hondas to park in lots to keep the supply of new cars such that the companies could sell at a higher price? Like it or not, industrial-scale farming is the business model. Like it or not, small family operated farms are being displaced. Those surviving are using their heads and finding new markets for different products. That's what free enterprise does.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
DVC 4/14/2020 12:05:51 PM (No. 379280)
This is really weird. I find out stores short on milk, and am drinking and cooking with exactly the same amount as I normally use.
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 4/14/2020 6:05:35 PM (No. 379631)
Sundance at CTH explains this, with a dairy farmer.
The problem is NOT lack of demand, it is lack of packaging available to package the milk for home consumption, as opposed to commercial bags of milk which it is packaged in for restaurant/cafeteria use.
Apparently those 2.5 gallon packages are impractical and in many states illegal to sell to consumers.
And the machines to make the milk jugs are made in China, and the existing bottling plants were already
running 24/7 before the fit hit the shan.
1 person likes this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Mike22 4/14/2020 9:42:25 PM (No. 379803)
The people who drank milk at school, cafeteria, restaurants are now drinking it at home. So more of the 1 gallon and smaller bottles are needed but there is no more packaging. The 2.5 gallon restaurant containers are not being used. So a retail shortage while dairies are dumping milk. Removing the laws preventing sale of the 2.5 gallon containers in grocery stores would be too difficult obviously.
Just like there is toilet paper, but it is on those giant commercial rolls. While everyone is home using the smaller rolls.
And with supply change management, your production capability is built to match demand so there is no excess capacity to increase production. Without getting new manufacturing equipment from China. Everyone with Covid-19 go out and hug a globalist.
0 people like this.
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