Trump attacks Canada's dairy supply
- Thread starter B00Mer
- Start date
Listen to the short interview I posted. I know it's ihate radio so they have made it cumbersome to post the link directly.....
Only Denmark and Canada have a quota system.
Only Denmark and Canada do not have independent dairy farmers going broke.
Lest we forget, Trump is speaking for the Corporate dairy farmers..........
Since 1970, the number of American dairy farms has dropped by more than 90 percent, from 640,000 to under 60,000 today. In an industry dominated by corporate interests, family farms are constantly at risk of going under. In addition to an unfair and often volatile pricing system, recent drought conditions and rising feed costs have tightened the financial squeeze on dairy farmers, leaving the future of their farms uncertain. If we want fresh, healthy, local dairy products, we need our dairy farmers to stay in business.
Between 1998 and 2007, dairy farmers saw their share of the retail milk price drop 25 percent, even while retail prices increased by 40 percent. While farmers were paid less and consumers paid more, corporate processors walked away with windfall profits. Milk prices have risen from their lowest point in 2009, but even with increased prices dairy farmers are still struggling to cover their production costs.
Recent years have exacerbated the dire situation for America’s dairy farms. In 2009, the milk market tanked, with prices plummeting and droves of family dairy farms closing their doors. While milk prices recovered somewhat in 2010 and 2011, it was not enough to recover the previous year’s losses. Prices dipped again in 2012 just as persistent drought—the worst seen in the U.S. since the 1950s—and skyrocketing feed costs plagued dairy farmers. In the worst months of 2012, dairy farmers were losing up to $8.65 per hundredweight of milk they produced putting their farms in jeopardy and dramatically impacting rural economies.
https://www.farmaid.org/blog/dairy-family-farmers-in-crisis/
Fear on the farm; Who will keep the milk flowing if U.S. president carries out his deportation threats?
The workers yell out to each other in Spanish above the noise. There's little downtime in their 14-hour day.
They are all from Mexico and are in the United States illegally. Some entered the country on temporary visas, but those have expired. Now they fear immigration enforcement officers are closing in.
According to a 2015 study by Texas A&M University for the National Milk Producers Federation, immigrant labour makes up 51 per cent of the dairy industry's workforce. Removing those workers, the report says, would lead to milk prices increasing 90 per cent and cost the U.S. economy more than $32 billion.
Fear on the farm: In Vermont, migrant dairy workers and their bosses worry about Trump - World - CBC News
The workers yell out to each other in Spanish above the noise. There's little downtime in their 14-hour day.
They are all from Mexico and are in the United States illegally. Some entered the country on temporary visas, but those have expired. Now they fear immigration enforcement officers are closing in.
According to a 2015 study by Texas A&M University for the National Milk Producers Federation, immigrant labour makes up 51 per cent of the dairy industry's workforce. Removing those workers, the report says, would lead to milk prices increasing 90 per cent and cost the U.S. economy more than $32 billion.
Fear on the farm: In Vermont, migrant dairy workers and their bosses worry about Trump - World - CBC News
It’s curious to this observer that the fair treatment of American dairy farmers somehow starts in Canada. Maybe the temptation to initiate a trade war with one of our neighbors and strongest trade partners is so deep-seated, that he and his advisors couldn’t resist jumping into the milking parlor to champion a rural cause and prove to the rural Americans who voted for him that despite not paying much attention to them since the election – and still not having an appointed Secretary of Agriculture – he and his team really do care.
Trump began his comments in Wisconsin by stating unequivocally that, “We're also going to stand up for our dairy farmers.” I hope that is the case, and that he and his team will muster up as much courage to criticize and reform American agricultural and trade policies as they have for Canadian policies.
The key piece of information in this story is that U.S. dairy farmers are simply producing too much milk. According to data from the U.S. Department of agriculture, 43 million gallons of milk were dumped in fields, manure lagoons or animal feed or were discarded at plants just in the first eight months of 2016.
Farmers are caught in a vicious cycle. When markets are up, farms often expand and production increases to take advantage of better prices. When the milk supply goes up and markets are down, farms often expand and production increases as they try to keep their heads above water. If that’s not a recipe for more of the same, I don’t know what is.
Here in Wisconsin, state programs like the Grow Wisconsin Dairy 30x20 Initiative have made the situation even worse. Beyond pushing Wisconsin dairy farmers to reach 30 billion pounds of milk production by 2020, the initiative—with no sense of irony—provides grants “to improve the long-term viability of Wisconsin’s Dairy Industry.” If you dive into data from USDA and the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistic Service, we’ve lost 2,411 dairy farms since March 2012 when the 30 x 20 initiative was announced.
That’s an average of almost 500 dairy farms per year. We are growing our production but it is being done by fewer and fewer, larger farms.
This all has a predictable end. Refusing to change our policies in agriculture right here at home will lead us further down the road to monopoly. We’re already firmly in the grasp of oligarchic practices with a small handful of massive, multinational conglomerates running the show in most sectors of agriculture.
Consolidation of land, farms, and corporations coupled with the death of the midsize farmer is encouraging ever more mergers, more vertical integration and more distance between your average citizens, the food they eat, the farmers who produce the food and
Wisconsin Farmers Union
Trump began his comments in Wisconsin by stating unequivocally that, “We're also going to stand up for our dairy farmers.” I hope that is the case, and that he and his team will muster up as much courage to criticize and reform American agricultural and trade policies as they have for Canadian policies.
The key piece of information in this story is that U.S. dairy farmers are simply producing too much milk. According to data from the U.S. Department of agriculture, 43 million gallons of milk were dumped in fields, manure lagoons or animal feed or were discarded at plants just in the first eight months of 2016.
Farmers are caught in a vicious cycle. When markets are up, farms often expand and production increases to take advantage of better prices. When the milk supply goes up and markets are down, farms often expand and production increases as they try to keep their heads above water. If that’s not a recipe for more of the same, I don’t know what is.
Here in Wisconsin, state programs like the Grow Wisconsin Dairy 30x20 Initiative have made the situation even worse. Beyond pushing Wisconsin dairy farmers to reach 30 billion pounds of milk production by 2020, the initiative—with no sense of irony—provides grants “to improve the long-term viability of Wisconsin’s Dairy Industry.” If you dive into data from USDA and the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistic Service, we’ve lost 2,411 dairy farms since March 2012 when the 30 x 20 initiative was announced.
That’s an average of almost 500 dairy farms per year. We are growing our production but it is being done by fewer and fewer, larger farms.
This all has a predictable end. Refusing to change our policies in agriculture right here at home will lead us further down the road to monopoly. We’re already firmly in the grasp of oligarchic practices with a small handful of massive, multinational conglomerates running the show in most sectors of agriculture.
Consolidation of land, farms, and corporations coupled with the death of the midsize farmer is encouraging ever more mergers, more vertical integration and more distance between your average citizens, the food they eat, the farmers who produce the food and
Wisconsin Farmers Union
Although American demand for dairy has risen steadily for almost 40 years, some farmers tried to limit the supply of milk by killing off their own cows.
No, you read that correctly. This mysterious state of affairs was revealed in a nationwide class-action lawsuit against dairy cooperatives, groups of farmers who pool their supplies but, as a whole, serve as middlemen between the farmers and dairy processors. In this case, lawyers from one of the premier U.S. plaintiffs’ firms alleged on behalf of American consumers that the cooperatives paid farmers to prematurely turn hundreds of thousands of cows into burgers in a sprawling scheme to prop up dairy prices.
The initial research that identified potential price-fixing in the industry was conducted by Compassion Over Killing, an animal welfare group. Erica Meier, executive director of the nonprofit, claimed the dairy lobby program constituted collusion in an effort “to line the pockets of agribusiness.”
Genske notes, however, that the farmers who took advantage of the option of selling cows for slaughter were often doing so out of desperation, not greed.
“No [dairy farmers] got rich on that program,” said Genske, an accountant and farmer in New Mexico with 2,000 cows of his own. “It was those who were financially strapped and found that as a great exit strategy.” Friedman, the attorney for the consumer class, however, says that some farmers made use of the program just for cash and not out of necessity.
The program, Genske said, helped farmers but didn’t solve the ultimate problem: bad supply management. “It was a short-term band-aid on a hemorrhage caused by lack of adequate marketing by our cooperatives. What they’ll do is convince farmers, ‘yes we need another plant, because we have all this other milk to utilize in the market.’ But what they don’t tell us is that product can only make a profit two out of 10 years.” That’s because oversupply of raw milk gets turned into longer-lasting products such as cheese and powder, which send less money back to the farmer.
“These dairy farmers are up against a terrible reality,” says Nate Wilson, a former dairy farmer from Chautauqua County, N.Y. “They don’t have any way to throttle the production of milk other than to eliminate cows. And when the price of milk goes down to ruinous levels, it’s basically the only way out.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-price-fixing-in-your-supermarket-dairy-aisle
No, you read that correctly. This mysterious state of affairs was revealed in a nationwide class-action lawsuit against dairy cooperatives, groups of farmers who pool their supplies but, as a whole, serve as middlemen between the farmers and dairy processors. In this case, lawyers from one of the premier U.S. plaintiffs’ firms alleged on behalf of American consumers that the cooperatives paid farmers to prematurely turn hundreds of thousands of cows into burgers in a sprawling scheme to prop up dairy prices.
The initial research that identified potential price-fixing in the industry was conducted by Compassion Over Killing, an animal welfare group. Erica Meier, executive director of the nonprofit, claimed the dairy lobby program constituted collusion in an effort “to line the pockets of agribusiness.”
Genske notes, however, that the farmers who took advantage of the option of selling cows for slaughter were often doing so out of desperation, not greed.
“No [dairy farmers] got rich on that program,” said Genske, an accountant and farmer in New Mexico with 2,000 cows of his own. “It was those who were financially strapped and found that as a great exit strategy.” Friedman, the attorney for the consumer class, however, says that some farmers made use of the program just for cash and not out of necessity.
The program, Genske said, helped farmers but didn’t solve the ultimate problem: bad supply management. “It was a short-term band-aid on a hemorrhage caused by lack of adequate marketing by our cooperatives. What they’ll do is convince farmers, ‘yes we need another plant, because we have all this other milk to utilize in the market.’ But what they don’t tell us is that product can only make a profit two out of 10 years.” That’s because oversupply of raw milk gets turned into longer-lasting products such as cheese and powder, which send less money back to the farmer.
“These dairy farmers are up against a terrible reality,” says Nate Wilson, a former dairy farmer from Chautauqua County, N.Y. “They don’t have any way to throttle the production of milk other than to eliminate cows. And when the price of milk goes down to ruinous levels, it’s basically the only way out.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-price-fixing-in-your-supermarket-dairy-aisle
Because of quotas rigged in favor of Ontario and Quebec BC farmers are forced to dump excess milk on the ground. Having a dairy quota is akin to having a set of Canadian mint dies.
You think Ontario dairy farms don't dump over-quota product? They're locked in at marketing board price while hydro costs have gone up 400%.
They get subsidized green energy from the Province at taxpayers expense .. No worries.
[youtube]d-diB65scQU[/youtube]
...unless they happen to be sucked in by one of the big blows who'll erect a windmill then slap a lien on your land
And Canada hired a failed drama teacher who has no real world experience with anything. What's your point?
Ohh I'd be careful with that one. Rabid Conservatives still swear by the light of a supply teacher from North Bay whose world experience includes fishing guide, ski instructor golf pro and three wives
Next time you should hire an unemployed trucker.
We'll go for a one-legged Latino mime.
Trump tweeting about Dairy again.........
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/856847826663460865
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/856847826663460865
