USDA versus small family dairy farms and business

[barefoot]

This is a very interesting site about a new ruling that USDA is contemplating that effectively stifles competition, lowers quality and raises prices by forcing more monopolization of milk by mega producers.

see what you think
http://www.keepmilkpriceslow.org/

I signed the letter.

 

[CCafe]

Before you start making comments you should have checked out some more literature on your website you listed.

These farms are big business, they are no way related to small enterprise and should not be subject to the rules of them. These people are milking thousands of cows a day! That is some serious money were talking about. Here is a website giving you an idea of how much were talking about. It is simulated data on what it would take to run a farm.

http://agecoext.tamu.edu/resources/publ ... /index.php

This study was done back in 1997, after reading it and then comparing it to the farms on the west coast, they are way bigger then this publication by far!!!

What they don’t really tell you is how much milk an average cows produces. A Holstein cow produces on average around 75 pounds of milk per day. Now you also have to figure an additional 10% to 20% of the herd is dry at any given time. Now Mallorie's Dairy was producing 4.5 million pounds of milk per month. Lets assume there are only 30 days to a month. They would produce about a 150,000 pounds per day. That would give you 2000 head of cattle that produce milk with and additional 200 to 400 dry cows. They also employ over 80 people to maintain this process!

Now that is a big farm!

I think they can afford to give up that tanker truck if they can’t afford the tax!
http://www.malloriesdairy.com/about_us.htm

 

[HIDad]

Whooaaa :!: You think these family farmers are big :?:

:idea: I suppose to other farmers they may seem big, but when the guys whining about their "impact on the marketplace" are in some cases doing over $56.4 billion dollars a year, these are the little guys. Just one of these multi-state cooperatives controls over 35% of the milk IN THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES. That's just one company. The cooperatives control over 99% of the milk in the United States. But thats not good enough.

These are farmers, all of whom started small,many of whom are women, who are well paying employers who are providing jobs with benefits to all their employees. Many of these employees have been with them for generations. That nice shiny tanker truck you made reference to would not even pay a quarter of the cost of the penalties FOR ONE MONTH. We are talking hundreds of thousands per month that goes right to the cooperatives. This is greed and politics, plain and simple. :evil:

And where are these farm employees going to find work. Once the redistribution of wealth takes places, no one is left with enough to hire even one of these employees.

These four and all the other dairy farmers in the nation have 4 options:

:arrow: 1) Ship to the big cooperatives who can keep as much out of the farmers check as they want. You join the cooperative and the cooperative takes your voting rights. You have no say unless you are a boardmember. :shock:

:arrow: 2)You can bottle your own milk under an agreement with the cooperative, but guess who gets to charge you wahtever they want in packaging costs? That right, the co-ops :!:

:arrow: 3)You can become truly independent like the 4 farmers on the website http://www.keepmilkpriceslow.org, but guess what :?:
:? :arrow: The USDA will not let you buy milk from other farmers, you must produce your own. If you want to grow because one of your customers needs more milk, you must either add more cows or send your customer to the competition. This makes ton's of sense

:arrow: 4) Close the doors and get out of dairy farming altogether.

So now that we know there are only 3 ways to be a milk producer, and only one option that does not involve the billion dollar cooperatives. So if the real "big boys" can eliminate any other competition like these four family farmers and the only option farmers have to get out of the deathgrip of the cooperative, guess who gets control of the entire milk market :?: Tah Dah :!: The cooperatives.
simple math:no competition+one big monopoly=higher prices :twisted:

Lets all support independent business when we can and tell the big boys to shove off

Go to www.keepmilkpriceslow.org[/url] and tell the United States Senate and the USDA to support independent American business and to say no way to the monopolistic power of the huge corporations.

 

[CCafe]

I don't want to burst anyone’s bubble, but I had family that milked cattle. Around a 160 head, they were the ones I called to get info on this subject. After talking to my aunt for a while I found that there are quite a few small time operations like them milking cows. The one thing that I found out is that those 4 small privately owned farms aren't small. That is the point I am trying to make.

The SBA defines what a small business is. A list of that information can be found here http://app1.sba.gov/faqs/faqIndexAll.cfm?areaid=15
I highly doubt these farms are producing less then .75 million dollars a year. I just can't see how they are considered a small business and why they should be exempt from a USDA tax.

 

[HIDad]

Small Business

Well, as just dairy farmers they may be big business, the avergae farm in Wahington State is considered a big business.

As a dairy plant, they are not only small, but maybe even tiny. A small plant is considered anything that employees less than 500 employees. The largest of these four family farms are not even close to that figure and thats if you combine the farming side of the operation. These family farms do not compete with others farmers, they compete with other dairy plants.

These farms also are not allowed to purchase any milk from other farms, so they had no choice but to grow in order to keep up with customer demand. The large co-ops control all the other milk in the region. These four family farms cannot even work together to market, produce or distribute their product. What kind of level playing field is that?

Why would anybody want to try and eliminate businesses that are family owned, small(controlling less than 1% of all the milk in many of these areas) enterprises that started and succeded on their own? The followed all the rules htat are in place, yet when they succeded the government and big business come after them to shut them down. Now the big businesses are trying to do the same thing on the east coast and mid-west states.

 

[CCafe]

I think you are wrong there. Information form Dairy Farmers of Washington says other wise. The average herd size is about 430 cows per farm. But the 4 farms that are mentioned here have heard sizes 2000+. Here some the website I found for Washington State.

http://www.havemilk.com/article.asp?id=2142

Also I have found the Midwest Dairy Association site.

http://www.midwestdairy.com/content.cfm ... facts_farm

Which even further proves that the average heard size is really small.

I just can't see these 4 businesses as being tiny when all the data shown here shows them as extremely big!