Posted on 10/12/2016 12:33:01 PM PDT by Early2Rise
Farmers in the U.S. are pouring out tens of millions of gallons of excess milk, amid a massive glut that has slashed prices and has filled warehouses with cheese.
More than 43 million gallons’ worth of milk were dumped in fields, manure lagoons or animal feed, or have been lost on truck routes or discarded at plants in the first eight months of 2016, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is enough milk to fill 66 Olympic swimming pools, and the most wasted in at least 16 years of data requested by The Wall Street Journal. .......... American farmers are in the process of harvesting record-large corn and soybean crops, and meatpackers are now producing the most ever meat and poultry. As a result, food prices in the U.S. have plummeted and farm incomes this year are headed for their third consecutive drop. ................
On Tuesday, the USDA pledged to buy about $20 million of cheddar cheese to help struggling dairy farmers, the second time it has intervened in the market in less than three months.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
...and they are crying in Venezuela.
Wait, becuase of raskly repubs, people are starving.
Would it not be economically feasible to send the milk to places where needed?
I guess I am naive.
Holy Cow! Someone will have the EPA on their case after all milk is a toxic substance according to the agency.
Sad. So many starving in the world. Such a waste.
Only some government statistician could say that food prices have “plummeted” this year. Anyone who buys groceries at conventional supermarkets will not agree with that, IMHO.
Then he will stop producing, as presumably he does not want to lose two dollars per hundred pounds. The supplies will diminish, prices will rise, and the problem will take care of itself.
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You can’t just stop producing. Cows need to be milked 2 times a a day. It would take a lot more money to feed cows that produce nothing.
Of course, you could always sell off some cows, or butcher them. However, then you would have to spend a lot more time and money in the long run when the price picks up.
They have plummeted to farmers, not to consumers.
Anyone claiming to be is either lying or too damned lazy to get themselves to free food.
There are agencies EVERYWHERE that do nothing but provide for truly needy people.
Meanwhile children in Haiti are starving......................
Totally agree. Look at the starving faces of kids all over the world. I am no liberal but this is almost as venomous as abortion.
Downsize Olympic swimming pools!
Holy Cow! Someone will have the EPA on their case after all milk is a toxic substance according to the agency.
Government is just a word for the things we do together.
No, but milk could be allowed to find its own price in the market, with less efficient producers choosing to leave the business if the price is too low for them to make a sufficient profit at.
Nothing worse than a greedy Dairy farmer.
The neighbors got something? Well I got to have one and better and bigger.
Not one lick of sense with them..not one. A dairy farmer with any sense at all would cull the herd, keep the high producing ones, contract with canneries and grow sweet corn or peas or something for the land they do not for feed and ride out the market.
Instead, they whine and cry and run to the feds for help.
You want to know why Wisconsin wants Punky Paul Ryan to stay in? Its the ag industry there. They want to hire all those Mexicans to run the milking parlors.
My ex father in law milked 44. And we knew every cow there. What to give her for ground feed, when she was sick, and what she produced.
Go to a mega farm where they milk round the clock and you’d be shocked. They are nothing but numbers and last about 5 years and thats it. I watched as they shot 8 cows one time after they fell into the manure pit under the loafing shedd.
Some of the starvation is because of government issues in those areas. Charities would be willing, but local warlords are creating grief, diverting it for themselves if letting the humanitarian aid in at all. Even if someone wanted to donate the shipping to get that milk in for free, they couldn’t do any good, not unless they had armies to stomp those warlords.
Cow falls in poo, they shoot cow, their operation being so tight that they can’t even pull cow out of poo.
True.
Passed out to friends with a nod, wink
I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream.
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