(click on image to enlarge)
Conventional dairy experts are always digging in their bag of excuses to explain why dairy farmers are getting more for their milk. One example which only pops up from time to time, is the milk/feed ratio. "Normal" thinking holds that when the milk/feed ratio is above three, dairy farmers will expand. As can be seen in the above graph, this is nonsense.
Since most of the conventional experts are land-grant employees, that is public servants, there is an obligation to hold the economic models up to the light of day. This does not happen and one might wonder why?
Upton Sinclair wrote a muckraking novel on the meat packing industry in 1906. Sinclair said, " It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
John, there you go again applying common logic to an economic complexity. Secretary Vilsack has spent several hundred thousand and assembled the finest pedigree economist only to chase the tail of the current system. Yes I realize your over qualified, what a damn shame. That Pete Hardin guy sure is lucky! You boys stay after that nmpf plan word on the street is it's bad news. What the hell happened to Dave his home work is due!
ReplyDeleteEvery body i talk to has either fewer cows or lower milk per cow. DO you think that usda is using a model that extrapolates milk per cow off of cheese yields. SO more MPC's means more milk? I think USDA is lost! they must be calling the KIWI's? What happens when the puppet masters realize the lie they told is to big?
ReplyDeleteThat graph is in the aggregate. Ahhh...the persuasive power of numbers.
ReplyDeleteMr. Aggregate your point is well taken. My response, the loss of profit, equity, net worth and in the worse case life should be accumulated in aggregate. I grant the privilege to milk cows is not a right. However the impact of 1031 tax exchange, lack of enforcement by government, false product reporting, imports and silent credits prove a game without rules. We are faced with a looming world food crisis. Do you have suggestions?
ReplyDeleteWell you can't feed the world with high commodity prices. No magic solution here.
ReplyDeleteCommodity prices went down today for those with euros $1.37 another level of complexity !
ReplyDeleteAccording to the CATO Institute "even though the portion of the population that farms has declined, the USDA bureaucracy has not. There is now roughly one bureaucrat for every six full-time farmers."
ReplyDeletePerhaps a high profile and respected political leader will step up at some point and call for the abolition of the USDA! As evidenced by folks who have weighed in on John's blog the USDA clearly is not doing their job they were mandated to do.
Eliminating the USDA would be a step in the right direction for dairy farmers.
Next up - the self-serving cooperatives!
Rules are for those with power to manipulate. This is evidenced daily in the dairy industry. Regardless of the commodity prices, if the milk price doesn't cover cost of production then farmers have nothing and less than nothing.
ReplyDelete