How can you dump chicken feet below cost? There is no cost for chicken feet other that packing and shipping. They are part of the chicken. You don’t have to grow feet.
I suppose the price of chicken is about to shoot up. China and Russia both down on the chickens and the EPA in 2009 forcing pollution-discharge permits on chicken farmers.
The dang Delta Smelt in Ca ruining farming, the recent freezing weather, and some farmers a few years back were put in ruin over the salmonella scare with maters.
Food is going to start being much more expensive and what I fear most is our gov’t jacking with the farmers so much... that too many farms fold.
Just look at Jamaica. Yes, we’re big, and much more wealthy etc but Jamaica gives a good idea at what continuing like this gets a country.
________________________________________________________
“But economic hardship head Jamaica in 1992. The IADB (Inter American Development Bank; part of World Bank) loaned Jamaica 50m US$, their current debt (Wikipedia) is over.
* This loan is blamed for the ruin of the dairy industry because local subsidies and control of imports abandoned due to rules and the economy was forced to compete globally against the US and other big (and subsidized) producers
* WTO, WB, IMF = all inter-related in terms of cross-conditionalilty (they don’t want to step on each other’s toes)
* MAJOR RESULT: Duties were slashed from 100% to only 5% milk powder was not only imported (from EU) but it was also heavily marketed to the Jamaican people. Before long, nobody wanted fresh milk, so milk was dumped and cows were turned to hamburger. Production plummeted from 3000L/day to less than 600 L/day.
* Calves are often killed, nobody will buy them and they cost too much to feed.
* These subsidised European milk imports have had a profound impact on the growth of Jamaica’s dairy industry. In the 1960s, there were 4,000 small farmers. By 1996, following the arrival of cheap subsidised milk products, this had shrunk to 470. And by 2002, there were just 90 farmers left.
* In 1993 Jamaicans consumed 38 million litres of home-produced milk. By 2002, that figure had shrunk to just 18 million litres. Forty per cent of Jamaica’s population live in the countryside – three-quarters of them on less than a dollar a day. The decline in the number of dairy farms has hit them hard. Critics blame the negative impacts of trade liberalization policies – particularly, the cheap, subsidized imports of milk products. But are they right?”
http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.php?id=562 ________________________________________________________
The farmers couldn’t compete with cheap, subsidized imports so they shut down. Problem is, the cheap won’t stay cheap forever, it will begin to climb in price. The farmers won’t be able to help the people because money/time etc will be prohibitive to them starting up again. What then...more dependant people and even MORE borrowing of money for the country.
I think all gov’t the world over needs to stop with this subsidy crud.