6 thoughts on “Wisconsin farmers are dumping milk to help stabilize supply during coronavirus pandemic

  1. As I recall, the government ( dept of ag.) used to buy up any excess milk and turned it into cheese. Under Ronald Reagan there was a great cheese giveaway. This was also politicized by Reagan during the 1980 presidential campaign.

  2. hear that? “lighten the burden that is in the system right now” that guy is talking bubbles.. obviously subsidized then he says he is disheartened… ‘a surplus of milk due to a lack of consumption’

    hmmm… lack of consumption…..ya think that might be because people can’t AFFORD It? instead of tossing it out reduce the price down to say giveaway prices instead of throwing it down the drain then the shelves are cleared …. then you can bring in the new shipment with the jacked up prices

    Ok that’s it for me for tonight….I’m heading over to the insane asylum for a cup of cocoa and some intellectual conversation then hitting the hay

  3. Mary that assumes the infrastructure is still there able to process the milk.

    Near us the dairy is shut down because of sick people not enough workers for even single shift. you can’t legally sell raw milk plus most dairies the milk is from Holstein cows this is a problem to start as they have many genetic problems and health issues that pass to the milk. As well in USA it’s manditory to use bovine growth hormone by monsantos origin.

    Milk only stays workable for 24 hours when processed filtered and chilled at farm. If left longer it starts to ferment in tank and lines. Think yogurt.

    From a healthy cow filtered milk refrigerated in sterile environment last about 6 days max. In summer our hand milked cows we need to convert at day 4 to other products usually at day 4 we piglet the extra milk after adding spoonful of yogurt and leaving outside for the night.

    As for why they can’t drop price it’s market protection from milk board, we get health inspector at our place min 4 times a year…. you get a quota of milk and anything you produce over you can’t sell but if you once fall short they can cut your quota(milk mafia)

    Inspectors that come to our farm they buy our meat products and will drink our milk not at other farms in area and we have 4 large dairy operations.

    It would be better if farmers used coop system to do value added to their product. Many do not think about this because they like just farming/ranching and last thing they want is office job.

    Neither did we but to run a smooth ship control from feed to genetic to slaughter and process was only way to control the quality. Yeah its not ideal but makes your farm resilient.

    In the end you end up with a self sustaining farm with a large capacity of economic shock absorbtion.

    Now changing to keyline farming to help the land and us grow. You work crazy hours but you can do it with those you love doing what you love and there is enough for next two genrations with expansion.

    We also are converting to permaculture for last 5 years last input is basically diesel and we are looking into a way to get to net zero carbon. It is possible but people intensive and you will never be rich in money.

    1. Every one is sick so can’t work the dairy. Well, the criminals have a solution & that’s to import slave labor from other countries happening right now. These, as you say sick, have been ordered to stay home, all part of the H1-B worker BS!

    2. Well pardon me for my profound ignorance! When he stated: ‘a surplus of milk due to a lack of consumption’ I assumed people were not consuming it. DOH! WHAT WAS I THINKING!?

  4. Yep, Namelus is right on target with ‘milk mafia’! we had a dairy farm in Wis., If you exceeded your quota, you got fined, no such thing as ‘free market’ in the corporate states of ‘Merica’.! That also applied to crops, you were paid to leave ground unplanted to protect the market.

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