Falling Milk Prices but increase in consumption

After reading about and talking to dairy farmers who are loosing their farms due to a steady drop in milk prices I think it's about time to start a tractor convoy to Washington D.C. (only just a thought) Do you think it would do much good? Why is the goverment not helping; is it they want all ag products to come from China? I can't understand why consumption of milk is increasing but the price paid to the producer is just about $9 per 100 pounds of milk depending on grade of milk. (Sorry for the spelling errors)

I understand your emotion, but what do you want the government to do? I have yet to see the federal government be able to fix anything, I don't know what they could do to help us. What we need to do is somehow put a restraint on any new dairy operations, so that no operation could have more than 1000 head per site. That would mean the jokers that just have to milk 2000-5000 head would have to build a seperate operation for every 1000 cows. With what parlors and manure systems cost, no one new would milk more than 1000 cows. Then make it so no one currently in business expands by more than 20 percent a year, so no one who is at 150 cows and wants to go to 1000 is able to in one year. The problem with our milk price has nothing to do with the processors or handlers. It because people are greedy and can't be satisfied with enough. They use the excuse that they just can't make it at 250 head, so they go to 1200 head. I guess they just can't understand that they are making the problem worse. If everyone would realize that, you and I and half my neighbors would still be making money on our 100 cow herds and milk would be at 20 cwt.

I am just an ordinary consumer, but I notice the retail price has gone down a lot lately.

Pappy, I don"t know where you are, but here in Portland OR milk is generally over $3 per gal. Depending on the store up to $3.69, and that"s not organic milk.
The chain groceries have been offering coupons and using milk as a loss leader more often the last 6 months or so; we don"t buy enough now to shop at Costco or such; may be generally cheaper there.

It's because supply and demand is not how our markets work. Mark my word, if we are not receiving LDP checks at the end of this year, it will be next year..............ethanol or no ethanol.

Building five different facilities is not going to control the so-called mega dairies. If you want the government to step in why don’t they regulate the manure, the stored feed on a site, and the animal husbandry. These guys who say they are milking 2000 to 5000 cows aren’t even touching a cow, they are just counting pounds. Now if they have to count how much manure is stored and fresh feed is stored and the condition of the animals. And all of the sudden there is a government car pulling in a couple times a week to check all this stuff they are not going to want the job of counting pounds or any other job, which than it’s not fun anymore paying fines that they can’t control. Anyone can milk cows but when you have to have more than one person running the place, as in a herdsman, you have all these other people controlling other important operation of the farm, manure, feed, and husbandry, and being accountable for them as in government regulated. It’s that old saying too many chiefs ruin the stew. And everyone is pointing the finger at someone else. The government should also give a brake to the family farms for standing the test of time, sticking it out through the change of county, state, and the United States government. I don’t think there are too many business in America that are 4-6 generations old, still in business I think that says a lot about the company (family farm) look at some of those boom towns, easy come ,easy go that’s how a lot of these big farms are.

The price of milk is still the cheapest liquid consumer product out there. People spent a lot more per oz. on many products then what a gallon of milk cost per oz.

(quoted from post at 21:03:16 02/28/09) The price of milk is still the cheapest liquid consumer product out there. People spent a lot more per oz. on many products then what a gallon of milk co

st per oz.

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Maybe the fact that 10% of our dairy products were being exported last year and now very little of it is because of the strengthening of the dollar. What is hard to understand is production costs have not dropped very much. How come prices recieved have fallen so much. It doesn't matter whether you milk 100 cows or 5000 we are all in the same boat as far as cash flowing. The dairy business is one where you have to grow or adapt constantly or you are finished pretty quickly.

I don"t think you are aware how much facilities cost today. If a guy had to build multiple setups for large herds it would stop our problem over night. All the big guys claim their efficiency is because they run cows thru the parlor 24 hours a day. If that was gone and they would have to have expensive equipment at multiple sites, things would change.

Thats nonsense, show me one guy milking cows that is getting the volume premium that the guy milking 5000 cows does. It is complete foolishness that a guys milk can be worth up to 1.50+ more a hundred because he milks to many cows.
Your logic is exactly what has caused the problem we are in. Granted to many people think like you do. The last thing we need is for more people to add more cows, "so we can be more efficient".

ontario canada here & as i"ve grown older i have watched virtually all the dairy farms in my county dis-appear, probably from a combination of low prices making it tough to eke out a living combined with the awesome committmet you need to make 24-7 to be a dairy farmer
i am no differnet than anyone else in that when i go to the store & buy a bag of milk & have plunk down $5.00 plus i think ouch, but really it is a helluva bargain & what in gods name would we do if they all just gave up & quit ?
worked in dairy as i was growing up all through school & would not blame anyone for wanting to get out think maybe the gap needs to close between what the farmer gets & what the milk companies get so everyone gets a fair share
bob

Actually the best thing to happen is to get the government COMPLETELY out of farming. Supply and demand will let the prodtive operations be profitable, including cash crops and the tax writeoff, non farm investors can take their money somewhere else. Wayne

No reason to get the gov't involved! All that does is make things worse. Basically it is survival of the fittest. Let the weak ones go out and the best will continue.

You guys are all missing the point. The fact of the matter is there is the equivalent of 300,000 too many cows producing milk in the US right now. This is cause dairy farmers are all the same. During the higher prices we all find a way to hang on to a few more cows and make a bit more milk. This is not a Big farm vs. little farm thing. The one poster here thinks that he needs the government to give him an unfair advantage in producing and selling his milk just cause he is under a certain number of cows. The best way to decrease the domestic milk supply is simple. Lower the legal limit for SCC. Right now it is 750,000. Bring it under 400,000. This will either make some farmers leave the industry cause they can't make good clean milk or it will cause the farmers to pull a few more cows from the milking string and treat their mastitis. It will also bolster the consumer confidence in our product and the shelf life of dairy products will be improved. Also would like everyone to know that there already is government regulation on some of the larger farms. Ever hear of CAFO compliance. These are strict regulations of manure storage and spreading. Requiring records of each load of manure spread on the fields. Small farms are not included in these rules. So there already is some regualtion of large dairies that does not yet apply to the smaller ones.

Why would the general public or the goverment want to cut dairy size in any way??????
The MILC has a cap so it does not help the big farms like it does the small ones.

Since when is it the Gov't responsibility to make sure everyone makes a profit?If you can make a profit thats great if not go to work for someone that knows how.

That's why I have goats. Don't have to worry about buying the nasty stuff they sell in stores. It leaves the dairy as milk, but they do SOMETHING to it between there and the store to kill it...

Ya your right I don’t have a clue what an operation cost, I only just finished up milking my 48 cows in a double 6 parallel that was built in 1952 and it doesn’t owe me a dime and I’m done until 4:30 tonight. I don’t have to haul manure or grind feed today if I don’t want to. I hope maybe this milk price falling is going to weed out these big dairy farms that have to keep all these cows just to make the payments. With the banks cutting back on lending how much more money are these big farms going to get when they have such low milk prices and not showing a profit? But I see your point let’s litter the county side with 10 1000 cow operation and add the extra machinery traffic at harvest time instead of 2 maybe 3 farms. Your idea would work really good not to mention the added employment to the local economy maybe you should talk to your governor Granholm about this she might like your idea to improve the unemployment in Michigan.

According to what some say the government cannot do anything to fix anything.Thats been true for many years because it has been against working people since 1980,and even before that.Now there is no supply and demand whatsoever.Crooks run all of the markets.The little guy has been forced out of a way to make a living in every type of business.Opportunity is gone.Thats what you get for voting for the wrong side for 30 years,a government that doesnt represent you any more,and is closer to communist than a democracy.
If you want to fix this you have to have government regulation of the stock market.The people that are hurting from when the crooks were running the market need to point out that they are getting less and the middleman is taking their profit.Nothing is working like its supposed to because its all rigged for the wrong side and has been that way since Ronald Reagan.As long as it remains that way working people loose and the crooks win.The government in the first place is us.If the government doesnt work,its our fault for not forcing it to work.Setting there and saying it doesnt work,and it should be kept out of everything is like throwing all the working people to the lions.This government is for the working people,get involved,fix the problems.Forget all of that crap you have heard,on here,and anywhere there is talk about politics,because it has been proven that its wrong.The old way is over,now its time to fix whats wrong,and if we arent careful it can go too far the other way.Thats what our government is.Its gone way overboard in the wrong direction for way too long.It has to go the other way or it will fall down,and if it does,it will suck to be us.Working people must have opportunity or whats the use?Rich middlemen help who?nnalert candidates that do absolutely nothing for working people.This is the biggest scam thats ever been pulled on a population,the "supply and demand"lie.Its the steal from the working man,make the rich richer scam,and little kids can figure it out.Supply side economics,Reaganomics,all the same scam.Time to get rid of it and every part of it that is still set up.

I am not a dairy farmer, but still wonder why dairy producers don't form a farmer's coop,and process/market/deliver milk directly to the consumer?

Does anyone know if this has ever been tried? I do agree that Govt. management would likely not help. I'm not convinced of any govt. management that has made anything flourish...

My thoughts are with all farmers during these challenging times.

Driving a tractor to washington would do nothing.

The only thing that would work is if 50% of the farmers with held their milk.

Need to coop to be the middle man. Have all buyers go to one place where you set the price or you get no milk.

Right now farmers are played against each other to keep production high and price low.

The solution is easy implementing it would be hard.

Not sure exactly what SCC is but was told once that is was just a count of body cells in the milk. We had a cow the produced about 100 lbs a day with absolutely no mastitis ever. However she had a SCC over 1 million. Our counts were always in the 700 range until we got yanked on the pay and sent a sample to a private lab and it came back in the 200's. Since the huge conspiracy was out the counts were always in the 200's after that. Finally got tired of the crap (take that both ways!) and sold them two years ago.

I guess I was hoping to find people with open minds here.We used to milk a hundred cows in Ct. Then along come offspring that want to participate in our business. A change was needed if they were going to make a decent living. Greed had nothing to do with it. All we have is a bunch of 45 cow dairies put together. Each of us gets to specialize in what we do best, which does include actually working with our cows seven days a week.
I did not say growth was the only option to stay in the dairy business,I also mentioned continuous change and improvement was a must. For some maybe that is organic or grazing operations. That is ok too. We all do what we have to do. Nonesense? I think not.

It"s been done that way for over a century. Most milk is processed by cooperatives.