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  • From: Pete Vukovich <pvukovic1@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] US dairy crisis, message from Willie Nelson & Farm Aid
  • Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:01:57 -0700 (PDT)

New day same pattern in my opinion. Ok so the trend for big dairy is the same as big grain, etc, offshore operations for cheaper labor in an environment that regulates them less, recreate the same industrial model, and then when it fails move on to exploit the next spot.

The problem is they are running out of spots to exploit. China is a prime example, its running out of land (ok , so now they confinement feed/ and house, and the runoff from the confinement starts becoming even more of a toxic mess than it is here), its running out of water (there will be a tipping point soon where water becomes more valuable than milk domestically), and you can't confinement house feed, so feed becomes even less cheap more rapidly. In the end, the only thing proping up your operation is the government of china, and it has its own interests to consider not to mention more than a billion of its own people to feed.

So you move to india, same problems, albeit a little more land. Now they've started offshoring to pakistan which will wreck havoc on its domestic production (nestle's already contracts for significant amounts of milk there). I'm sure there are folks at dean looking at eastern european export growth to europe right now, thinking maybe we should talk with some of the 'stans' , or poland, or lithuania next. Others wondering what sort of genetic modifications would be required to adapt and scale dairy to central and west africa, given that the much of the east is likely to become a desert.

From a business perspective alone this process is dauntingly stupid, every 10-20 years you have to pick up and move somewhere else leaving local agriculture in a mess, bootstrapping yourself on domestic production and relative local poverty, with greater and greater out of pocket expenses to conform local domestic production to your industrial model. It takes special people to want to do that sort of work, basically you have to commit to failure (you're bad at what you do) and develop some pretty bizarre myths about food that don't bear out in the world (nature just produces so much, and cant sustain or self limit itself systemically).

I'm all in favor of trading excesses, but whats happened with gatt and the like is no different than handing a dangerous weapon to a child. If most of the proponents of it came forward and said 'Were pretty bad at what we do we fail at it regularly, and we'd like to do that more rapidly more places' I sort of doubt there would be confirmed globalists trying to explain how globalism didn't contribute to a global recession today. Can't imagine a kid explaining to its parent "I'm real clumsy and I don't know anything about combustion , so would it be alright if I borrowed your lighter?"






--- On Sat, 6/27/09, TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:

From: TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] US dairy crisis, message from Willie Nelson & Farm Aid
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Saturday, June 27, 2009, 9:36 PM


That is the problem.  Those regulations you rightly target tie our hands as
independents in so many ways. It's far from a level playing field. One area
where they can't beat us is fresh, local food. Not even Whole Paycheck can
match us on that score. Organic doesn't mean fresh or local or even good
tasting. On a small scale we offer all three. No store can compete with us
on that basis.

>From your link I see you work a year round operation that's extremely
diversified.  Very difficult. I do know something of the industrial tomato
crime going on in your state. And that's often the crux of the problem,
starvation wage labor serving nothing but corporate profits at the expense
of everything and everybody else. In consideration of which we choose not
to compete head on with the big box ripoffs, but target a niche market -
customers who can pay more for better taste and safe food, and want to
support local growers. And safe food is getting to be uppermost in the
minds of this demographic. Storebought has become downright dangerous. I
don't know if you can put a price on food safety and health.

Good for you.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 6/26/2009 at 7:13 AM Diane Kann wrote:

>The farmer's plight is much more than just what's on the surface.
>Regulations make it nearly impossible for family farms to exist, let alone
>compete.  And now our insightful government has chosen to IMPORT milk
>products from China!  China, the land with the many health issues with
>regard to milk formulas and other products.  We force our own farmers out
>of
>business so that we may buy from a country who has sent us melamine in
>products recently.  I'm not bashing the Chinese people---I strongly
believe
>they are merely trying to survive.  But our government is not doing much
to
>allow our farmers and other businesses in our own country to survive.
>
>--
>Diane K
>very THANKFUL homeschool Mom to 9 blessings in
>Christmas, FL
>http://hocfarms.com
>visit us on Local Harvest:
>http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M19402
>
>On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 3:35 PM, Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> US dairy crisis, message from Willie Nelson & Farm Aid
>> Wednesday, June 10, 2009
>> http://usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com/
>>
>> The drastic drop in milk prices paid to farmers over the past year has
>led
>> to an unprecedented crisis for dairy farmers who, on average, are being
>> paid less than half the cost of production. Low prices and high
>production
>> costs threaten to push nearly one-third of dairy farmers off their land
>> over the next couple of months, strengthening corporate control of the
>> dairy industry and severely impacting the health of local and regional
>> economies nationwide.
>>
>> “Setting a fair price for milk won’t fix all the problems that led
to
>> the current crisis, but it may be the only way to keep thousands of
dairy
>> farmers on their farms this year,” said Farm Aid board member Willie
>> Nelson. “Unless Secretary Vilsack takes immediate action, huge areas
of
>> the United States may be left without any local dairy farms at all.”
>>
>> Dairy farmers have been hit with a catastrophic combination of factors
>> beyond their control. Farmers are struggling to pay bills from record
>high
>> feed and fuel costs; adequate credit is increasingly impossible to come
>by;
>> and the price of milk paid to farmers by processors collapsed a record
30
>> percent in January alone, and is currently down 50 percent since July
>2008.
>> In the meantime, the top dairy processors have recently announced 2009
>> first quarter earnings that are up from the same period last year. The
>top
>> processor, Dean Foods, reported their first quarter earnings are more
>than
>> double that of last year thanks in part to the plunging price Dean pays
>to
>> its milk producers.
>>
>> Under Section 608c (18) of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of
>> 1937, the Secretary of Agriculture is required to adjust the price of
>milk
>> paid to farmers to “reflect the price of feeds, the available supplies
of
>> feeds, and other economic conditions which affect market supply and
>demand
>> for milk and its products.” Farm Aid urges Secretary Vilsack to use
this
>> power to immediately institute a set price for milk that reflects the
>cost
>> of production, keeping dairy farmers on their land.
>>
>> “The U.S. has a tradition of local and regional milk distribution,
making
>> dairy farmers a base for strong local and regional economies. The loss
of
>> these farms will reduce spending in small businesses, investments in
>banks
>> and shrink the community tax base. If we lose a third of our dairy farms
>in
>> the next few months alone, imagine the impact on these economies by
>> year’s end.” said Carolyn Mugar, executive director of Farm Aid.
“As
>> our independent family dairy farmers go out of business, our milk supply
>> gets more consolidated by giant confinement dairies that do not
>contribute
>> to our local economies or act of stewards of the land like our family
>> farmers do.”
>>
>> The petition can be accessed by going to www.farmaid.org/dairyfarmers
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland
>>
>
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