Here is a good story on what is going on and why. This situation is affecting real people and real families.
Even if the suit succeeds it will be too late for many. Here is the auction listing for the family dairy farm of one of NY's handful of dairy bloggers and an online friend of ours. It is already too late for her and her family to recover from 18 months of prices far below the cost of production, and my heart aches for them. (Wish they lived a little closer so we could go to the sale to lend moral support if nothing else.) If you click on the farm name on the listing you can see a pdf of their cattle and machinery. They have some really lovely cows and it must be heart breaking to have to sell them.
Its a sad situation all around! I hope they can get the job done in court if they can get there! We all are going to be sorry if our farmers keep having to go out of business!
ReplyDeleteWell, aren't I dumb.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was supposed to buy Garelick because I thought they represented local farmers.
What am I supposed to buy?
This makes me very sad. Most of the local dairy farmers in this area of MT are long gone. . .
ReplyDeleteThe dairy industry has shrunk here from 35 when we first married to just 7 in a three county region. My heart breaks for them, it really does.
ReplyDeleteLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Lisa, it really is terrible. I wish I was more hopeful about the lawsuits. So many similar efforts have been dismissed on absurdly flimsy grounds
ReplyDeleteJune, I can't answer that one. There is very, very little milk on the market today that doesn't go through the big guys' hands. In fact that is pretty much the crux of the problem. Just a few years ago we shipped to a mid-sized independent cooperative that marketed for us. We didn't get rich but we lived comfortably. They were devoured by one of the big players and we can no longer say that
Moos, there are a pretty good number left here still, but more and more are either selling their land for development or to the Amish
Linda, awful isn't it? Our milk inspector says there are no farms left in his county, which once had a healthy dairy industry.