Oh! It is to sob uncontrollably.
Posted on 02/04/2006 6:31:13 PM PST by Calpernia
A lone milkman is delivering misery to the doorstep of the giant dairy industry.
Hein Hettinga was once a simple dairy farmer who sold raw milk from his farm in Chino, Calif. Today the Dutch immigrant has expanded his operation so much, so fast, that some of the biggest dairy companies and cooperatives in the U.S. have banded together against him. They are lobbying for federal laws to close loopholes they claim he exploits. Mr. Hettinga counters that the only purpose of the proposed legislation is to kill competition -- and keep milk prices high.
"That's not right," says the 63-year-old farmer.
The milk fight, which is being watched in the industry from coast to coast, started because Mr. Hettinga runs a rare hybrid operation. Most dairy businesses either only produce milk, or only process it. He does both. As a result, he falls into a protected class that isn't bound by an arcane system of Depression-era federal rules. Under it, milk processors selling into specific geographical areas, which cover most of the country, must all pay into that area's pool for subsidizing milk prices. But so-called producer-distributors have always been exempt.
Mr. Hettinga also has avoided pricing rules at the state level. Because he has a bottling plant in Yuma, Ariz., that ships milk into California, he isn't covered by Golden State regulations. That means his costs are lower than those of rival processors; he can sell his milk for less. By some estimates, his entrance into the Southern California market lowered milk prices for retailers by 20 cents a gallon -- though the dairy industry in California says consumers haven't seen the savings at the grocery store.
Feeling Mr. Hettinga's regulatory end run is legal but unfair, dairy-processing giant Dean Foods Co., supermarket chain Kroger Co. and the Dairy Farmers of America, the nation's largest such cooperative, are backing bills introduced in Congress in recent months by California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, a former dairyman, and Sen. Jon Kyl, a Republican from Arizona. The bills would force the smaller operators doing business in those two states to pay into the pool if they grow to a certain size.
Mr. Hettinga is a standout in U.S. agriculture. He has figured out how to thrive as an independent farmer when the American farm belt is dominated by corporations. Cargill Inc. and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. have consolidated the business of grinding and milling grain. Tyson Foods Inc. has done the same in meat. Now Dean Foods and the Dairy Farmers of America are working on a similar feat with milk. Dean already controls a third of all milk that is consumed in America annually and DFA represents more than a third of fresh milk produced.
The showdown on the West Coast has national implications. The Virginia State Dairymen's Association says the legislative crackdown would protect the state's dairy industry from similar unregulated incursions such as California is facing.
The International Dairy Foods Association, the largest group representing processors in the country, and the National Milk Producers Federation, a collective of cooperatives, call the emergence of large farm operations that could also package their own milk a national issue of "critical concern."
The growth of producer-distributors, they argue, would disrupt a system developed in the 1930s to ensure that Americans would have stable access to milk. Because the product is perishable, in the old system, big processors exerted so much market clout over small dairy farmers that they strong-armed pricing, sometimes causing shortages in the milk supply. The current rules give farmers more predictable milk prices.
Under the federal regulation and California's state system, processors now pay a set price into a pool based on how they will use the raw milk, for cheese, yogurt or bottling. The pool is averaged, and that sets a minimum price guaranteed to farmers. Farmers like Mr. Hettinga who also bottle their own milk -- a group whose numbers have actually been shrinking -- were exempted from the pricing provisions partly because they were such small-time operations that they were negligible market forces.
Mr. Hettinga moved as a child from Holland to Southern California in 1949 with his family. After high school, he took a job working with livestock, first milking cows, then later trimming hooves and castrating bulls. By the early 1970s, he was running his first dairy farm, in Chino. He joined local cooperatives and expanded his business, buying up seven dairies in Southern California and Nevada in the next two decades.
In 1994, he built a $160,000 bottling plant for his own milk in Yuma. He began shipping to nearby Mexico and elsewhere in Arizona, competing with the farm cooperative United Dairymen of Arizona, which says it controls 80 percent of the state's raw milk supply. He undercut his rivals and soon was selling milk in discount supermarkets across the state. As the stores multiplied, so did his milk sales, more than tripling in less than a decade. He now supplies more than 10 percent of the bottled milk in Arizona, about 25 million gallons annually, he says.
"He went from a curiosity to an irritation to a real problem in the marketplace in a relatively short period of time," says Bill Shiek, an economist with the Dairy Institute of California.
His opponents were particularly riled by Mr. Hettinga's building a $12.5-million milk-processing plant in Yuma. The plant supplies about 700,000 gallons of milk a month to more than 20 Costco Wholesale Corp. stores across the border in Southern California.
Dairy farmers in California and Arizona say Mr. Hettinga is costing them millions of dollars a month by not having to pay into either of the two states' price pools. "The farmers just want everybody to play by the same set of rules that they have to play by," says Mike Marsh, president of the Western United Dairymen, a large industry group in California.
Defiant, Mr. Hettinga has taken his battle to the streets. Last year, he slapped about 50 giant stickers on the backs of all his milk tankers and trucks. They read: "Stop the milk monopolies from raising your milk prices!"
Could you please put me on your Weston A. Price ping list? Thanks a lot!
I have used raw milk, raw butter, cream, etc. off and on. It's still kind of hard to get, even in California, and it's expensive. I would welcome more producers of these kinds of products, as the competition would bring down the price.
Altadena Dairy (So. Cal.) used to sell raw milk products years ago, but I guess they got hassled out of doing so, and now all their stuff is pasteurized.
What I really wish I could get regularly and at a decent price is raw goats' milk. It's a lot harder to get than raw cows' milk.
"Defiant, Mr. Hettinga has taken his battle to the streets. Last year, he slapped about 50 giant stickers on the backs of all his milk tankers and trucks. They read: 'Stop the milk monopolies from raising your milk prices!'"
Go, Man! Go! Glad to see it. Good luck against Dean Foods, though. They are pretty powerful, so he's got quite the battle on his hands.
Milk here in Wisconsin is $2.99 a gallon and up, and I can't swing a dead cat without hitting a cow around here! Thanks again, politicians and government for taxing something to the hilt that should be very, very cheap for me in my state.
Gasoline is at $2.39 a gallon right now. 39-cents of each gallon is a combination of Wisconsin taxes.
Sure thing!
You are forgetting that if competition is allowed to grow the monopoly "cooperatives" will not be able to have all those lobbyists, lawyers and public relations consultants. Also there would be an end to all those programs about the government buying milk for schoolkids and the FEMA warehouses being awash in unwanted and unneeded cheese.
These small operations were initially excluded because they would be too much trouble to deal with but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to grow to a point wherein they can actually bring competition to the marketplace.
"...and the FEMA warehouses being awash in unwanted and unneeded cheese."
I was raised on that 'Free Government Cheese.' We were dead-broke when I was a kid. It makes the best Mac-n-Cheese on the planet. :)
But you're right. The whole system is totally corrupted.
>>>>>I would welcome more producers of these kinds of products, as the competition would bring down the price.
That is what the monopolies are fighting, err, lobbying against.
NJ milk is about a dollar more.
And contrary to popular belief, we have farms. Dairy too.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1563271/posts
Healthy People 2010
>>>>Mr. Hettinga is a standout in U.S. agriculture. He has figured out how to thrive as an independent farmer when the American farm belt is dominated by corporations. Cargill Inc. and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. have consolidated the business of grinding and milling grain. Tyson Foods Inc. has done the same in meat.
Cargill Inc. listed here as a member of the World Business
Council
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1572207/posts
Global Manipulators Move Beyond Petroleum
'Dairy Gets squeezed by the Feds'
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1414369/posts?page=1
In its 85 years of existence, Smith Brothers Dairy in Kent has survived all manner of misfortune and mistakes. There was the Depression, when milk sales plummeted. There were cow-killing floods. There were modern times, when it appeared the old-fashioned idea of fresh milk delivered to the doorstep had died. "None of that compares to this," says Alexis Smith Koester, 60, dairy president and granddaughter of the founder, Ben Smith. "This is the biggest threat we've ever faced." She's talking about the federal government.
Unless I am mistaken the WSJ reporter means by "raw", unprocessed bulk milk. It requires a special license to sell raw milk for human consumption and at last count there were only two dairies selling raw milk in California--one in Fresno and one in Watsonville.
Raw milk requires superior sanitation and animal health. Pasteurized milk can contain large amounts of dead bacteria killed by heat.
Raw milk (for human consumption) producers get very high prices for their milk, from $65 to $100 per cwt. and the demand is much higher than current supply.
"Jersey" cows are the prettiest...though that's a different "Jersey."
I live on a farm and raise laying hens for egg sales, as well as raising hens from chicks to sell to others in the area. I'm currently campaigning DH for a cow, or a few dairy goats. :)
In Wisconsin you should be able to find a fine Normande dairy cow. They give dellicious milk and are very easy to handle as a family cow. I imagine though that as cattle are social animals your cow will need a companion or two, steers perhaps. Jersey is also a good choice, but not as easy to handle. Stay away from Holstein--nice cows if you want gallons and gallons of watery milk.
Oh! It is to sob uncontrollably.
I believe it will be about $6.50 per chick for you to tag.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1565481/posts
USDA steps up efforts to track livestock
http://nationalpropertyowners.org
National Property Owners
Full research sections on National Animal Identification System (NAIS)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1563271/posts
Healthy People 2010
Information on where the funding came from for NAIS
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1561077/posts
Animal Tagging and SCHOOL LUNCHES???
Information on some of the partners on these posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1564815/posts
Digital Angel and Microchip
Info on the technology that will be used for the tagging
Not complying with the microchipping is a Class C felony. You will lose your rights to bear arms and vote.
Thanks! I'll look into that breed. :)
"I imagine though that as cattle are social animals your cow will need a companion or two, steers perhaps."
Goats make good companion animals for both cows and horses, from what I've heard.
Get a female, then you could have cow and goat milk.
Yes, I know. I follow these threads. When they start enforcing it, it becomes Butchering Day. :)
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