Posted on 06/01/2005 6:50:25 AM PDT by Radigan
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.
And there was the crackdown when society realized cow manure could be as toxic to fish as anything produced at a nuclear plant.
"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.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed new rules that could force Smith Brothers to either give up half its business or close up shop entirely, Koester says.
What are the feds trying to stop? They're trying to keep Smith Brothers Dairy from selling its milk for less.
And we call this a capitalist country.
The dairy, which is small enough that the president answered the phone when I called, is being punished for doing too much too well.
For 75 years, milk has been heavily regulated by price and marketing controls.
People who know more about it than I do say the system works well. It protects those who own only one part of the milk business — say, a farmer with cows but no milk-processing plant — from being gouged by big agribusinesses.
But Smith Brothers has always been exempt from these regulations because it is so independent. It does it all. It is one of only 11 dairies left in the Northwest that raise and milk the cows as well as pasteurize and bottle the milk.
Its business model is so antiquated that most dairies like it long since went under.
Smith Brothers survived by discovering that what was old is new again. Home delivery of milk is hot. Especially if people know who owns the cows so there's a guarantee no growth hormones were used.
Remarkably, Smith Brothers now delivers milk to 40,000 homes in and around Seattle, the most in its history. And it is so efficient it does so at the same or lower prices you get in many stores.
Yet the feds, backed by the biggest dairy processors in the West, want to force Smith Brothers and other do-it-yourself dairies to sell through the government-regulated system. They say this will help the small farmers who already sell milk to big processors.
But Smith Brothers, no milk monopoly with just 1 percent of the market, would have to pay subsidies to its competitors that exceed the dairy's yearly profit. Or it would have to break up its business, and no longer provide its unique cow-to-carton-to-doorstep service.
So what we have is the government, prodded by large corporations, saying it is helping small family farms by destroying one of our most successful small family farms.
Come to think of it, I guess that is American-style capitalism after all.
Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.
bump
Hey....I just looked at your profile page.....did you move to King County already? Have you figured out which is MORE liberal, Bellingham or King County.....
Thanks for posting this.....I'm a 3rd generation native of King County (well, took 12 years off, in Oregon)....and LOVE the Smith Brothers Milk Trucks I still see running around.....the Valley is fast becoming CEMENTED for the future, but Smith Farms still survives....and smells...LOL.
I have incentive and ability, but because of the socialism you support, I am going to be paying off YOUR debts until I am in the grave, I have no bright future because of you and the socialism you push.
So I say better them (including you) to starve, than me.
It is you who should reap what you have sowed, NOT me.
amen brother!
Let me put it in simple terms for you, when imported oil was cheap, drilling in this country was almost zilch. Why, decause the cost to drill was as much as the return. Now that oil is at an all time high every drilling rig in this country is drilling for oil. Not a problem the rigs when not being used are stored and used when it becomes advantageous to use them. Now, if the farmer was not subsidised and it was a free market and we allowed cheap imports of food, the farmer would soon go out of business since there would be little or no profit. No problem you say, well five years later because of disaster war or other reasons the imports stop, you cant just pull cows, pigs, farm equipment out of storage and start farming. It would take years to get our food supply up to where it would need to be. This is not a socialist idea, it is a security issue and our survival as a country could depend on it.
Please enlighten us....what is the exact reason this milk company is going bankrupt?
Sorry about the typo's, spell check is my friend, I know.
One that you didn't list - MERCANTILISM.
Adam Smith defined it in "Wealth of Nations" inn 1776. Basically it's government manipulated by the fat cats for the benefit of the fat cats, while purportedly "free" and "democratic".
Cows bump
No, the real reason we don't drill for oil is the envio-nuts in the EPA and Congress won't let us.
The price arguement is just propaganda.
Unfortunately the feds fought and won this battle back in the 1890's concerning interstate commerce and farming. They don't have a ghost of a chance beating the govt on this one.
I don't know and I pointed out the author of the article did not include the reason. But the dairy industry gets taxpayer subsidies, so I stated that was a possiblity.
No, like I said every drilling rig in this country is working, pipe movements is at an all time high. If you do not believe me google the nation current rig count. Being involved in the oil industry in the past I keep up with these things. Think what would happen to the price of oil and the supply of it if all imports was cut off. It would be a catastrophe. For one there are not enough rigs available to drill and even if we did there wouldn't be enough pipe because we have depended on imports for our supply. We can never let our domestic food supply diminish to the point that we could be in peril.
So are you saying it is cheaper to drill out in the middle of the ocean, two miles underwater and another mile into the bedrock, than to drill for oil in the U.S. mainland?
And I know for a FACT this is oil in parts of the U.S. that a LOT closer than Alaska, like the state of Georgia which has test wells from the 1950's and Utah: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1388012/posts
FYI
HoustonChronicle.com
FYI
HoustonChronicle.com
Footnotes without facts it questionable at best. Now either answer my question, or admit you are wrong by staying silent.
Sorry about the double post.
But Smith Brothers, no milk monopoly with just 1 percent of the market, would have to pay subsidies to its competitors that exceed the dairy's yearly profit.......It's there in the article.
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