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 ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSdZXYk3zKI
Add “government induced famine” to the growing list of ways in which this country resembles the USSR more with every passing day.
Downsize Olympic swimming pools!
Man, we could have had an awful lot of veal grown with that.
Too many Americans are absolutely allergic to free markets. If we eliminated government intervention, these supply and demand problems would work themselves out, and the result would be cheaper and more abundant food.
What about all those billboards about “ hungry “ people ???
My son, the doctor, said he’s never seen or heard a single report of someone in US being rushed to hospital because he/she was dying of starvation.
...An increase in milk production combined with sharply lower exports and declining sales of fresh milk have combined to depress milk prices paid to farmers from a 2014 high of about $28 per hundred pounds about 9 gallons to below $18 this spring.
Wood said he’s currently selling milk for less than it costs him to produce it around $20 per hundred pounds...
I was wondering about that smell in the back yard.
The economy is doing so great that we are reverting to depression era policies.
“Dairy farmers spray milk at the European Parliament in Brussels”
...Farmers sprayed thousands of litres of fresh milk at the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday in protest at what they say are excessive milk quotas and prices below the cost of production...
Morally, this is a shame.
SAVE
I’m curious what subsidies do to the picture. If you don’t keep it up, you lose your subsidy for the next year?
Is Obama out playing golf? I’m sure he’ll read it in the papers tomorrow!
Or cheeses, or alfredo, or pizza toppings.
What a waste.
The very same docs are concerned about the obesity problems of the poor they see every day.
He doesn't produce milk. Cows do. And you just can't stop milking them without severe consequences. So shutting off the 'spigot' and cutting production isn't as easy as it sounds.
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