I met Mr. Hardin a few years ago at a dairy meeting and found him likable and fascinatingly well-informed about perhaps the murkiest topic in town, milk marketing. He is well-known in the dairy industry for thinking for himself and for not bowing to conventional wisdom just to run with the herd. He also has a lot of theories about the tangled web of milk marketing and pricing that many people pooh-pooh, because they at first seem so outlandish. (Like water buffalo milk in imported milk from India.....) However, pretty much every time you read something in his publication, The Milkweed, you later find out that it is true. Now he is featured in an article in the New York Times.
If you have the remotest interest in what is and has been going on in the dairy industry for the past decade, (much to the detriment of most dairy farmers), read this article. It simplifies some very complicated issues impressively well. Milk pricing laws and formulas, the way it is marketed, and the structure of the big so-called "farmer" cooperatives are staggeringly complicated...about as transparent as a puddle of crude oil. It is amazing to see a publication like the Times reduce these topics to a comfortably clear denominator.
Here is a link to one of Mr. Hardin's articles on the situation (caution large pdf)
It is a relief to see these issues, which have supplied farmers with a nightmarish dilemma of where to sell their milk when the big boys come to town, and how to make a living on less than the cost of production, brought to mainstream attention. Maybe it will do some good.
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4 comments:
Great post, haven't had time to read the links yet... But will.
The Stockman Grass Farmer had a great cover article this month about one family's journey from conventional to grazing to once a day milking for cheese production. This progression has helped them still keep making a living at what they love - cows and dairy.
Thanks TC for always providing something for us to think about.
Hope you guys are cooling a little bit - it is snowing here in the mountains :(
Nita, snowing!!! Oh, dear! This is awful enough but that would be a whole lot worse. I have read quite a lot about alternative methods of making a go as a small dairy. Some of them have become quite mainstream for little guys such as seasonal herds and grazing. Our herd would probably do well as both of those things as they graze very well, especially for Holsteins, and it would be simple to go seasonal as we have a lot of spring calving. However, the boss is a pretty conventional guy....so.....
I hear you - we didn't change until we had to, we always sold calves as weanlings, and when they closed the stockyard we had to scramble. All the dairies have been run out here - I miss them. That's why I love your blog so much, you are like the neighbors we used to have, only you and the boss haven't given up. Thanks for just being you and doing what you do.
Nita, thank you...it is sad to hear about the loss of your area dairies, and I can see it happening here too. Between the nearest largish city and the next town west of here there used to be about fifty dairy farms with driveways on our road. Now there is just.....us!
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