Global Collapse in milk prices wipe away dairy farmer profits

I had a feeling dairy farms would be hit pretty hard given the ridiculously high price for it.



news.yahoo.com...

[edit on 25-5-2009 by Darth Lumina]

This is good. Milk is so freaking expensive nowadays.

A collapse in milk prices has wiped away the profits of dairy farmers, driving many out of business while forcing others to slaughter their herds or dump milk on the ground in protest...

news.yahoo.com...

This is not done out of protest. This is another example of capitalism wasting resources. This happens a lot when over production causes a surplus of resources than cannot be sold, so it is wasted.

The milk could have been given away, but unfortunately for the starving millions profit comes before people.

Agriculture has been messed with by the government in the forms of regulations and subsidies for a long time now. When farmers produce too much of a thing the government takes money from us and gives to them to pay them to stop producing.

What would happen without the agri-welfare is the dairy producers who cannot afford to exist would go out of business or switch product suffering a loss. As the fat is trimmed dairy prices would stabilize back to a market dictated price. But with fewer dairy producers the effect of an illness or taint would be felt harder in that there would be less source for the product and any short in supply would be felt more immediately and probably more harshly.

I dont like the agri-welfare but then I'm more than willing to accept the reality of a sudden short in supply. Most "soft" Americans arent either because they would collapse under sudden $10 milk or balk at the idea of having to settle for powdered milk for a period of time or they think it's America's responsibility to drop food to the warlords of third world nations.

American resources should stay in America and the government should stay out of the marketplace and the American people should be willing to accept the fact that reality brings with it a tough time once in a while.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
American resources should stay in America and the government should stay out of the marketplace and the American people should be willing to accept the fact that reality brings with it a tough time once in a while.

That's good as long as Middle East resources stays in the Middle East.

Originally posted by Wally Hope
The milk could have been given away....

Actually, to be fair here, it could not have been given away. Raw (unpasteurized) milk cannot be distributed in the US like that. There are very few places where raw milk is a legal commodity. Now, I'm not defending the practice by any means ~ just pointing out the facts.

When the dairy farmers say ""It's going to be ugly. This is historic stuff going on," he said. "The dairymen are nervous, and they are scared"

I believe them. There is a global food shortage going on as we speak and not only in poor countries, I'm talking Global, including the US, EU, Australia, ect.

This is a serious problem and the government is allowing this to happen.