And he says we need higher milk prices to make smaller dairies economic. The price race-to-the-bottom forces dairies to get bigger and bigger, which is bad, bad, bad, from a quality standpoint.

Small dairy's and the families that run them work hard and give a better quality life to their stock and the milk they produce. I have neighbors that run small dairy's..so I'm with your brother as well.

My cousin runs a small dairy, been in the family for over 150 years.

and there's no way to make a living wage with artificially imposed low prices. Milk prices have to reflect the actual cost of running a dairy.

and since it will be the govt paying the inflated price it will hurt every taxpayer,every child

Last edited Fri Nov 1, 2013, 05:28 PM - Edit history (1)

Having experienced a major life-altering illness 10 years ago, I radically changed my diet. Gone were red meat and diary products.

I lost 40 pounds and feel the best in decades!

I now eat seafood, occasional fowl with some animal-based cheese. However, rice cheese, for the most part, and almond milk along with veggie meats have become the main staples of my diet.

But I remember growing up and seeing meat and diary products on my plate three times a day. That was the norm then...

I hope you meant 'fowl'

suffer considerably. Kids need milk to be healthy.Milk is as much a staple as bread and prices should reflect that.

Children can get the nutrients present in milk from other sources.

... Dr. Fuhrman, Dr. Campbell and Dr. Esselstyn, authors of recent bestsellers on healthy eating.

Its bad for your health and bones. And now its also laced with growth hormones, antibiotics and God knows what else.

just as food stamps are cut. Can you say perfect storm. I guess it will take the peasants storming the gate with pitchforks before something is done...

Cheese prices would go thru the roof!

Unfortunately that stuff usually has Karageenan in it. Which, is worse than milk or real cheese.

but it had an aftertaste i didn't care for. i might as well eat american "cheese food" (yuk). there's nothing like real cheese, cheddar, mozzarella...

Petition: https://secure2.convio.net/aft/site/Advocacy;jsessionid=17FFA0A306BCEAE3E3113E958818F3F5.app273b?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=429&AddInterest=1061

The only thing I always buy organic. $4 for half a gallon. The only nonfat milk I can stand. Tastes as good as fat milk and I imagine it's better for me, without the hormones and antibiotics and all.

It's the taste I'm after. I would not have thought it possible I could transition from tasty fat milk to bluish, thin, yucky tasting non-fat. But this made it easy. I drink a lot of milk and it was becoming a real health issue for me.

http://cloverstornetta.com/products/organic-dairy/organic-milk-and-cream

Milk from cows who's majority of food comes from pasture grazing.

There is also a very noticeable difference in taste.

In my opinion, dairy is one of foods where organic makes the biggest difference.

I decided to go dairy-free for a couple of months just to see if I noticed a difference in how I felt. For some reason I believed soy milk must be pretty disgusting but I found it quite drinkable and not at all slimy or snotty. Most of them seem to be too sweet for my taste but it was perfectly fine in coffee.

There are some good varieities.

Soy also has that estrogen like compound which is not ideal for many people. And soymilk is not fermented -- which many will argue makes it little better than junk food and obstructs calcium absorption.
Almond milk and coconut milk are my choice --taste a lot better to me and I have tried them all at length

but not almond milk because I hate almonds. I lived in South Florida and as a kid I would break open the coconut and drink the juice from it. But I am sure coconut milk sold in the stores is not the same.

Yummy soups and sauces!

Taste is really different for everyone. Fake dairy is something that just doesn't taste right to me. I do like almond milk, but I consider it a different liquid then milk with it's own unique taste.

Lots of good stuff in that fat that the cows get by eating forbs in the pastures. Many of the vitamin and almost all of the anti-oxidants are carried on fats and Organic whole milk is one of the best.

And forbs are all the weeks, wildflowers and other broadleaf weeds that grow in a natural pasture. Non-organic cows eat mainly a diet of silage which is fermented corn plants, not grain. It is not bad for them, but being a grass has very few natural chemicals that work for us.

And it taste so good.

And a lot fewer heart attacks.

let market forces kick in on this hyper-overproduced subsidized garbage.
decent milk products will go up.
the trash wont.

For those that missed the reason for the price increase buried in the article, it's because price supports
in older farm legislation would take effect if not replaced by newer legislation.

How about ZERO?? Maybe even a negative number (increase)?

But OH NOES can't let the price of milk go up!

I mean, why is the government picking winners or losers in the market place anyway, right? Why is the government making milk prices more competitive compared to apple cider or beer? Do Republicans support social engineering? And all those poor dairy farmers who have become dependent on government handouts, don't Republicans want to "free them"?

I don't think the US government should subsidize dairy products that are consumed in other countries.

http://www.usdec.org/Why/content.cfm?ItemNumber=82367&navItemNumber=82213

Wouldn't those prices go up as well?

I stopped drinking milk in my 20s and my health has been much improved since.

Aren't we the only animals on the planet that drink milk past early childhood?

And do any other species drink the milk of another species?

I may have my facts wrong but I do not think we need cow milk.

drop in ear and upper respiratory infections, especially in children.

when I gave up cow's milk in favor of soy milk I found my singing voice benefited tremendously, my vocal range extended down at least half an octave, and my lifelong hoarseness has improved.

As a dairy-eating vegetarian I used to get throat or ear infections at least twice a year. When I went pure vegan I cut out dairy and eggs, and haven't had a cold, sore throat or ear infection in 3 years.

get a cold.

Or rice milk or almond milk. It's better for you anyway.

It's the best for cooking, baking, drinking, and it's delicious!

Although it is a saturated fat, it has been found to lower bad cholestrol.

I find it subs best for any milk in cooking, especially for cream sauces.

You can buy reduced fat, but it's still higher in fat than reduced-fat dairy milk. For me, it's a small price to pay!

I found that the soy milk stays good a lot longer than milk. Same for coconut?

I buy it in half-gallons, and have kept it for as long as 2 weeks. I imagine if you keep it refrigerated, it shouldn't be a problem.

Silk has it in 1/2 gallon cartons for a good price - around $2.00 - $2.50 in the Portland/Salem area. You can also buy it in cans but the carton tastes better, IMO.

Though I DO think family farmers should get a lot more for their products.

One thing I feel fairly sure of is that a product with a short shelf life is NOT going to go up much in price. If people couldn't buy it, it would just rot on the shelf. There are milk sales here every other week, because folks won't buy it at the higher prices they try to push on consumers. It goes on sale or it goes bad and stores take a big loss.

So all in all this is just another scare tactic to push a rob-the-middleclass-and-poor agenda. I'm not falling for it and I hope you don't either.

... if you are a baby cow. If you are not, why are you drinking cow's milk anyway?

but just in case anyone is interested, milk freezes just fine. A gallon takes 4-5 days to thaw in the refrigerator so plan ahead.

and milk is one of the most commonly loss-leadered products in retail. Customers remember the price of milk and are very sensitive to any change in pricing on it. In other words if milk is $2.79 per gallon on the shelf, the store may have paid $3.10 to put it there. They lose 30 cents on every gallon BUT if they are 10 cents cheaper on milk than the guy down the street then the customer assumes everything in the store is cheaper or they will come in for the milk but wind up buying other things.

I know that some here who are more educated regarding nutrition think that milk is bad for you, for a variety of reasons. I suspect it's because the human body very poorly absorbs the calcium contained in cows milk, primarily... setting that aside for a moment though..

Milk is a huge staple in the diet of the vast majority of all Americans. Organic soy milk and other kinds of milk aren't available everywhere, especially if you live in a rural area. A lot of people also simply do not like it, and will not use it no matter how much more affordable or better for you it is. It's kind of like trying to get someone who can't stand spinach to eat a bowl of it.

Now maybe people can be more flexible than I think, and will simply choose the healthier, less expensive alternative - but my concern is that parents that don't have any real nutritional education will instead simply struggle more just to buy milk. Food stamps may be going down while milk prices go up... at a time when millions of people in this Country are hungry.

It's sick. I don't know if this will be good or bad for dairy farmers, but I know it's going to be bad for parents who are struggling to get by as it is, and and use milk for cooking and breakfast cereal.

Regardless of whether or not milk is bad for you - I would rather have people have milk, than have nothing.

Telling people who can't afford milk things like "Drink soy/almond/coconut milk!" and "You shouldn't drink milk!" is not going to fly with the vast majority of the country, including a lot of Democrats and liberals, like myself. I drink milk and you're not going to convert anyone with this attitude.

i am amazed that a bunch of dems could be happy about kids going without milk

Last edited Thu Apr 20, 2017, 02:15 PM - Edit history (1)

it is time to kill the farm bill.

Let the right live by their words.

So this is the axe over our heads to "justify" slashing food aid.

Have we grown tired of the blackmail, America? Had enough of the con games and terrorism?

They have been building an impressive police state for when we do.

which is a good thing for consumers but the trade off was subsidizes for the farmers...if i understand the current senate bill correctly,they cut subsidizes and replace it with subsidized insurance for farmers...not sure how that helps the dairy farmer as weather does not directly impact them and milk production

i do not think pols on the right or the left are addressing the milk issue

if we revert to the 1930s farm bill the govt will be spending more on milk so there is no savings in that (to gut food stamps with)

the danger is nothing addresses dairy in the new farm bill and then the "free market" is in charge and our milk will be shipped to the highest bidders (saudi princes will be filling there swim pools with it instead of school kids drinking it)

the problem with the expired farm bill was there were no limits on subsidies ,thats why we heard of millionaire farmers getting govt checks

i think we need to feed Americans first both with food stamps and artificially low prices at least on staples like milk

in order to "justify" cutting food aid. It is a scam used by corporate-bought politicians to try to convince the "sheeple" that there was no other choice. It is despicable.

You are right that making sure all Americans can afford food and milk is the bottom line.

we just never had pols so evil and stupid before

The Agriculture departments budget is second only to the US military in our country. While there are a ton of things in the farm bill that we on DU would love to see go away such as crop subsidies there is an awful lot of stuff that I think many of us believe in that wold vanish:

Research funds for sustainable agriculture-GONE
Funding for Farm to School Programs-GONE
Cost share programs for farmers to implement conservation practices-GONE
Funding for efforts to eradicate food deserts-GONE
Grants to improve infrastructure in rural communities (Including many of color)-GONE
And much, much more

If the farm bill is not renewed, the law says that the budget must revert back to what it was when the original farm bill was developed. Sustainable and organic agriculture, price supports and conservation practices in agriculture are nowhere in that original bill

and potential consequences like this skyrocketing price of basic foods, it makes a fella start to reevaluate the moral position of historical figures like Robespierre and Lenin. The rich in this country truly are out of their minds with arrogance, entitlement, and hatred of the other 99.9% of the American people.

Back in the day, there was a group of people called the technocrats. They had a theory that abundant societies, like the United Sates had reached the point were the basic needs of human beings were so plentiful, paying for them was no longer necessary other than to keep people in debt and enrich the aristocracy. This was in the early 1030s!

Today, more than 50 years later, we are witnessing even more abundance, as nearly everything is plentiful and the only thing restraining that abundance is price and economic-imposed scarcity. The technocrat solution was unworkable then as it is now. Even so, it's crazy to think in this modern century that we're still paying for food.

There has to be a better way. And there is. When I talk with people across the world (more than 25 countries) about Copiosis, at first they are incredible. They can't believe it's possible to have a viable economic system that allows total freedom, abolishes all debt, spurs innovation and eliminates all market externalities caused by traditional economies. I think part of the reason is because Copiosis is from the future, not the past so people have a hard time putting it in a familiar box.

Things in the good ol' USA are going to get worse as we continue trying to live with what we know is destroying the American Way. Sooner or later, they will seriously consider the one thing that makes The American Way way better. Copiosis.

Here are the fundamental issues we need to fix, but never will so long as capitalism and the two party political system reign:

1. Physical, transferrable amoral currency. This is the crux of all our problems. Until this is eliminated, we will continue to pay dearly for nearly everything.
2. Amoral markets that put profits first: No matter what you think about capitalism, it creates perverse incentives we have come to accept as necessary. That's crap.
3. Government: Government never has and never will be "for the people." It is a relic of times long gone and is no longer relevant in societies, especially those marked by abundance.

There are more things we must fix, but get these three right and the rest fall into place. When they do, milk, and other food, and all other basic necessities (food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and education) will be provided to all at no cost. We'll all be better for it.

Appreciate the comment.

I think you've got the right idea, but I'm not sure how we'd ever have a way to realistically implement it. The farmers growing the food, the companies that process it, the butchers, the factories, the bakeries, breweries... the list goes on and on. Why would they create food supplies if they did not receive reward for it? Why do the work if they aren't going to get paid? Most people are not going to take on the very difficult physical tasks of farming or food preparation if they're not getting rewarded for it.

I'm all for ditching our currency, but it requires coming up with an alternate plan that can be realistically expected to work. Providing these things to all at no cost? Sounds like a beautiful dream, but I do not think it will happen. Greed is universal. Selfishness is universal. Compassion, generosity, and charity are far more rare. I wish we could live in the world you speak of, but I do not think that most people are capable of that kind of humanity and nobility.

However its poison for humans. The farm factory system in place to deliver all this liquid poison to consumers is killing this planet!

Also the price of a gallon of milk which will do great harm to your health is higher than gas!

I hope and pray the cost of milk goes to 8 bucks and ever higher!

Or close to it.

I buy Organic Valley milk. Good stuff and worth the extra $1.00 a half gallon IMO.

I hope it doesn't go up more in price however. I'll have to switch back to the local organic milk which is not really that great (but does cost quite a bit less but the flavor is just not there).