California Water

Voter Intimidation

Even at the farmer level.

Yesterday I saw farmers who were afraid to sign an independent petition requesting an increase in milk prices. They belong to a certain large, national, so-called "cooperative", which told them they would lose their market if they signed it. That company controls a ridiculous portion of the market so they had little choice but to comply.

Something is rotten and it ain't in Denmark.

Meanwhile, check out this article. (HT to John Bunting)

Farmers Squeezed by Big Milk

Here is an article, on National Public Radio of all the unlikely spots, that details some of what has been going on in the dairy industry over the past couple of decades. A good read!

HT Cousin Scott


Here is another interesting article on anti-trust efforts that may be undertaken.

More Chuck Jolley

This week Mr. Jolley interviews Kevin Murphy about anti-agriculture activism and what response farmers can offer. As are many of Mr. Jolley's articles, this one is worth taking time to read.

Just for Dairy Farmers

****And of course for consumers who are interested in what happens behind the scenes in the milk production industry.

John Bunting has had several posts this week on processor profits (up 176% this year at one notorious company) and how the International Dairy Foods Association, which represents the big food companies (which are growing ever richer at the expense of dairymen and women) have sent a letter decrying efforts by government officials to direct a little more cash toward struggling farms. Worth reading. I learn something every day.

NAIS and Kansas FMD Lab

Two links to Cattle Trader stores.

One is a Chuck Jolley column on the popularity of the National Animal Identification system....or the overwhelming lack of it...



The second discusses the advisability of plopping the nation's animal disease research lab (think foot and mouth disease) down in the middle of Kansas cow country.



****be sure to click the link at the very end of Jolley's column about USDA and the word "no".

More Chuck Jolley on NAIS

Here is the transcript of a Q&A session with Tom Vilsack....(except that it wasn't with Vilsack).
To me it looks like a lot more of the non-answers to important questions that USDA has been tossing around like rotten fruit....however, it would be good if you took a look to see for yourself if you have a chance. Mr. Jolley has provided his email address should you wish to convey to him your take on the session, which in turn may forwarded to the Secretary of Agriculture Food Stamps.

Do You Want the Good News First?

Gillibrand maintains stance on cow flatulence tax.

Or the bad news?

A good friend of the family is interviewed in this article on potentially disastrous new farm labor laws in NY. By good friend I am talking the kind of guy who showed up to feed cows for weeks when the boss had an emergency appendectomy before the kids were old enough to work.

Or perhaps the really insanely horrible news? FDA may inspect right down to the farm level and call foods from farms that don't comply adulterated.

As if farms weren't already inspected half to death. And as if most food recalls didn't originate at the plant level, not at the farm. I hope people wake up quickly to this one, because it is going to cost everybody who eats a lot of money and add a layer of government that won't be cheap either.

Still More Melamine in Chinese Products

This is pretty frightening. Our family is buying less and less prepared food these day...not that we bought a lot anyhow, but I am reading labels more carefully all the time.

I honestly started feeling (and writing about) concern about the Chinese dairy industry years ago, when they were buying up registered Holstein cows locally. I remember reading the editor of a certain dairy magazine that serves our area crowing joyfully about exporting heifers and thinking that what might have looked good at the time would come to roost later. China's exported apples have virtually devastated the apple industry in some states. They have no quality standards, but cheap prices are a strong lure. At the time of the Chinese cattle buying expedition I expected that nation to flood the world market with cheap dairy products hurting US dairymen. I had no idea that instead they would export poison in dairy food form.

In this article the Chinese government admits that melamine adulteration of feeds and food products is commonplace there. I suspect that we have only just begun to see the scope of the problem.

Livestock Contribution to Global Warming

Probably isn't as bad as even the least of the doom sayers think. Seems the folks who blame cows are including deforestation in the Amazon in their figures. Personally....there were a lot of ruminants on this continent (think so many bison that they shook the earth and took hours to pass) when we got here. They all ruminated then and there was no excess of warmth.


***If you are wondering what I am doing making so many posts in one day...well, I just finished making apple jelly and you know how it is...you deserve a break today and all. Plus I dumped a jar on the counter, burning all the fingers on my left hand so...(but you notice I can still type...it hurts but anything for the cause.)

Anyhow the apple pie jelly was a success. I had people coming out of the rafters to taste it as soon as I had the foam skimmed off. I couldn't find the allspice so I just added a little cinnamon and nutmeg, but the result sure is a lot better than plain apple. I will do this again. As soon as I get more sugar, more apples and my fingers feel better.

******PS, Florida Cracker mentioned Picasa 3 in his post today. I have been using 2 for quite a while, but I downloaded 3 to try it. All I can say is WOW! Lots better. Lots

HSUS has chosen their candidate

The hugely wealthy, monster-sized animal rights, vegetarian, anti-farm group has found their man.
Read all about it here.

Here is more about their activities.(This time accusations of wiretapping.)

JBS Swift fires Muslim workers

I was really surprised by this development. Companies seemed to be bowing to worker pressure to change the rule in the workplace, then this popped up in the news yesterday. Swift is a Brazilian-owned mega company, one of five-ish that controlls most of the beef in this country. It is attempting to buy out two of the other major players, a deal which, if completed, will concentrate sales in very few hands.

A good one from Terry Etherton

Here is his take on some of the unsound science being used to convince people that conventional food is somehow lacking.

Trent Loos has some good ideas

Here is a link to one of his columns

"The basic message is: Animal agriculture provides the essential nutrients for humans beings, and this is how it works. ..."

Ethanol and livestock based agriculture

Ethanol makes my car run terribly. I go out of my way to find gas that doesn't have it.

Ethanol makes my grain bill a painful prospect by increasing demand for both corn and corn alternatives.

Fertilizer prices are obscene.

The farm gate price of milk is set by government regulations. Dairy farmers have no way to pass these increased costs along so there is a serious pinch being felt here and at livestock farms across the nation.

Here are a couple of interesting sites with more details about this phenomenon.

Top ten farm expenditures (includes change from 06 to 06

Choices and unintended consequences.

Monsanto trying to sell Posilac

No, not the drug. They already sell that. They are attempting to divest themselves of the division of their company that produces it.

Even though there is no way to chemically differentiate milk produced from cows who are or are not treated with it, I guess the writing is on the wall. Processors don't want it. Consumers have been convinced rightly or wrongly that they don't want it. If Monsanto is trying to ditch it, it is probably on the way out.

For the record we don't use it for a number of reasons, none of them having anything to do with the quality of the milk resulting. I think it wasn't the best thing in the world for the dairy industry, spurring production in excess of demand. Now a large percentage of milk is again produced without it and there still seems to be some excess production, so either people are still using it (after all it is undetectable) or more likely, other management methods have caught up and are increasing production.

I was interested to read this article though. On one hand I am not going to miss it if it falls by the wayside because we don't use it anyhow. On the other hand this seems to open the door to removing other technology on the dairy, some of which we might use.

How about this story

GIPSA Alleges Swift and Company, d/b/a Swift Beef Company Violated the Packers and Stockyards Act

Meeting

NYS Commissioner of Agriculture, Patrick Hooker, who made the meeting possible.
He is truly one of the good guys.

Through the kindness of a friend I was able to attend a listening session on dairy issues in Syracuse yesterday. Though the matters discussed, such as who pays for the hauling of milk, volatile milk prices, de-pooling of organic milk leading to unfair price advantages for those outside the pool, raw milk sales and the rampage of some entities which are called farmer cooperatives, but which are really just more of the octopus arms of gigantic businesses engaged in making money off farmers were important, attendance was dismal. If there were half a dozen farmers there other than the presenters I would be surprised. However, there were plenty of activist groups, including the Consumer's Union there and lots of lawyers in suits eager to tell our state offcials that farmers should pay for hauling or else.

The low attendance was pretty disappointing, If we don't speak up for ourselves, who will? (Of course, chicken heart that I am, I didn't present, just took lots of notes and a few photos, with plans to say my piece in the Farm Side Friday.

John Bunting

I was delighted to hear John Bunting of the Milkweed speak. The five minutes allotted was way too short in his case, as he spoke of price manipulation on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which is far too little reported or discussed.

In the case of the guy from New York Dairy Foods, a so-called full-service dairy trade association......well in his case, it would have been nice if the moderators had held him to his five minutes. He launched into an impassioned tirade about why farmers better keep on paying their own hauling that had me and my companion ready to walk out. Vermont had the courage to enact legislation forcing processors to pay their own hauling. Then guys like this one and "cooperatives" like Agrimark convinced the legislature to postpone implementation until NY makes a decision. Now these guys are lobbying hard to make sure they get their way here.


I also got to meet Nate Wilson, a farmer from Chautauqua county (I thought I got a picture of Nate for you, but somehow I didn't). He has a cogent argument for why processors own the milk as soon as it is pumped out of the farm bulk tank, so they should be paying the freight from that point on. If you have time read his remarks in the Post Standard, linked to above. They make a lot more sense than the processors yelling that if they have to pay for hauling they won't pick up small farms. In NY at least most farms are small farms....and they can pass their costs on, where farmers are forced to eat them. I had found Nate's letter online when I was researching last week, forgot to bookmark it and couldn't find it again when I was working on the Farm Side so I was pretty tickled to meet him.

The meeting was stimulating, interesting and worth attending, even if the turnout was disappointing. Still it was good to come home......

Home, sweet home

Pete Hardin makes the NYT

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.

Argentine food crisis

Kinda, sorta big news, but I don't see anything about it in the mainstream press.