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The Dairy Industry Advisory Committee (DIAC) has a blog and a recent entry is at: http://blogs.usda.gov/2010/09/24/milk-price-volatility-solutions-discussed-during-third-diac-meeting/
The part I find offensive is: "From 2008-09, dairy farmers suffered a loss in income as consumers and businesses cut back on the amount of milk and milk-based products they bought, creating a surplus and driving prices down. During the first quarter of 2009, milk prices — which are based on commodity markets and fluctuate with global demand — dropped from $16.80 per cwt to $12.23 per cwt due to oversupply."
According to USDA dairy farms marketed 187.3 billion pounds of milk in 2009. Commercial disappearance totaled 189.4 million pounds.
The dairy farmers were an ATM machine for the dairy marketing chain. What part of "know" don't they understand?
But we're just a bunch of dumb farmers we aren't supposed to analyze data, figure out what they are really doing and spread the word. That just doesn't fit the plan...
ReplyDeleteJohn, What I find offensive is the number of people in the room who (may) actually know the real story and yet can make a statement like that. DWCovert
ReplyDeleteEver heard of inventory?
ReplyDeleteEver heard "this panel of thieves is piling it up faster than we can shovel it"? What I find offensive is this was supposed to be a committee to investigate the causes of the collapse and form a plan of action to rescue the farm, but what it turned out to be is as we all expected in the first place. The big coops and processor good old boys shoving it to the farmers again and not only that, but blaming it on the farmers all the way. I wish there was a way to cut off the milk supply completely and make them crawl for a change.
ReplyDeleteWe need to look at ways to finance a short-term "milk embargo". That's the only way we can bring real attention to a broken and corrupt system. With farmers' money, the CWT program financed the closure of hundreds of dairies.
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