| Dairy farmers who sell direct to their customers are probably doing ok--they can set their own prices so when their cost of production goes up they can reflect that increased cost in their prices. But direct sales of dairy represents a tiny proportion of dairy sales and is not allowed in every state. Mid- and small-scale producers who send their milk to be processed off-farm--the majority of dairy farmers--are facing low prices for their product at the same time as they're paying increased production costs (feed and fuel) and access to credit is drying up.
Milk pricing is extremely complicated. The National Family Farm (www.nffc.net) has great resources to help with that, including info about how milk price is affected by corporate consolidation, manipulation and imports including a non-approved food additive that food companies use to save money instead of using real milk from US farmers. But essentially all milk processors, regardless of size, pay farmers the price for raw milk that is dictated by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). It's possible there are some co-ops paying their farmers a bit more than the price of milk on the CME, but with the vast majority of our milk processed by just three companies, the majority of farmers are receiving the CME price. That price is currently about one-half their cost of production--meaning farmers are paying $20 to get back $10 for their milk!
Farm Aid has been gathering signatures for a petition to Secretary Vilsack to immediately adjust the price of milk to reflect the cost of production, something he is actually required to do going back to a law from 1937. In promoting our petition, I've encountered people who have declined to sign saying, "We buy organic" or "We buy direct from our farmer." This is the ideal, of course. But it's not the reality of our food system at the moment--though we're working towards that. In the meantime, there are two major issues, both of which come down to access--by farmers and consumers:
* This dairy crisis puts us at risk of losing the 60,000 remaining dairy farmers we have in this country. Losing those farmers means potentially losing those farms and that farmland forever, not to mention the impact those losses have on local, state and regional economies. That loss affects our ability to feed ourselves, forcing us to rely on other countries and multinationals for our food.
* And to those who say (and believe me, I've heard this a lot!), "Well, they're conventional, maybe they should go out of business," many of the dairy farmers who are struggling are small farmers, selling locally to their co-op, grazing their herd on pasture, not using rBGH, incorporating sustainable methods. In other words, they're what we're all working to encourage more of and if they're not yet, they have the best potential to be! And in fact some of the struggling farmers are organic; organic milk has hit a rough patch as well, with some organic companies asking their producers to reduce herd size and canceling contracts. The loss of these farmers reduces our capacity to depend on sustainable and organic dairy products in the future. We can't expect farmers transition to these practices, which require financial investment, when they're losing money every time they milk and when organic brands cannot take on new farmers right now.
* Finally, while many or most of us on this list are buying organic and/or direct, that's not how the majority of Americans are eating (remember organic makes up just 3.5% of our food sales in the U.S. and most people still buy 100% of their food at the supermarket), nor do many have that option due to access and affordability. I recently had someone tell me, "My farmer sells a gallon of raw milk for $10 and that's what all farmers should be doing." I asked him how he'd expect a family barely getting by in this economy to afford a $10 gallon of milk. He said, "People need to know their food has a real cost." While this is true and something else we're working on, we've got to ensure that people have an available, safe, affordable food supply while farmers transition to methods that are more sustainable for them, us and the planet.
Farmers who have been in the movement a lot longer than I have had said that the current dairy crisis reminds them of the conditions of the 70s, when poultry farmers were being paid pennies and the contract system of poultry production that now dominates the poultry business came into being, and the 80s, when the same happened with pork and CAFOs replaced the family farms raising hogs. Regardless of the kind of milk we drink--raw, organic, direct-from-the-farm, even rice or soy for that matter (and don't forget about ice cream, sour cream, butter, and cheese!)--we can't allow independent family dairies to be replaced by CAFOs and foreign imports.
To sign Farm Aid's petition, which we'll be delivering to the Secretary of Agriculture on June 18, please go to http://www.farmaid.org/dairyfa... |
