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Vermont was a bit of a hot seat for Dean Foods. The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearing last Saturday which included remarks by the head of the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, Christine Varney.
Deans PR firm for this event can be found at: http://www.global-prairie.com/en/default.aspx
There are several statements which deserve further attention but, for the moment note:
As National Milk Producers Federation CEO Jerry Kozak recently said about the current dairy situation, “We have to first admit that the biggest problem is also one that no one organization or government can possibly fix, and that is the global recession. A worldwide decline in dairy demand, owing to the worst economic downturn in 75 years, is at the heart of the price crunch on the farm. If it were just America's farms that were suffering, that would be one thing. But when the same dynamic plays out on dairies from Argentina, to Austria, to Australia, there is no swift unilateral, or multilateral action, that can alleviate the problem….it’s all over the world.”
It is most definitely not all over the world. Canadian dairy farms are not being hit by this centralized milk mafia. Canada has made certain their dairy farmers are not globalized.
Interesting, so how do they explain DFA needing more milk?
ReplyDeleteAnd the thing is also, all the other dairies around the world aren't having to deal with the prices we have had to deal with and for as long as we've had to deal with them.
ReplyDeleteA dairy farmer friend in England and I were discussing this very thing a few days back. He had no idea things were so bad here. And that their price had dropped but no that much.
I would like to know what gives!?
I find this most interesting. I can recall a few outstanding price periods in the past 35 years. One was right about the end of the 1970's; one was the very early ninety's, one was quite short lived in 2004 and then late 2007-2008 until the MILC payments were approved. When it descended more rapidly than any other time. That must have been when the government set the regulated price that Dean and others had to pay. I thought the government set price was the floor and not the set price to which some abyssmal premiums for fat, protein, quality and volume could be added. But it does answer a personal question that has been haunting me since I asked at a store that sells Dean bottled milk why the price had not followed ours down and they said to me because you are getting subsidized. Apparently they had been coached on what to say, At that point I think the subsidy to the our 90 cents a gallon was less than 10 cents and milk was still just under $4 a gallon.
ReplyDeleteJohnson
Was at a meeting a while back and I remember being told something to the effect: "Retail dairy prices are basically static, and if farmers are not getting a fair share of that, it's your fault"
ReplyDeleteRusty