In case some of us are not aware what is going on with Dairy Farmers in Wisconsin and other parts of the U.S., here is an accurate video about what is happening on family dairy farms:

https://www.agdaily.com/video/dairy-farmer-breaks-industry/?utm_source=FbMain&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=" rel="nofollow - https://www.agdaily.com/video/dairy-farmer-breaks-industry/?utm_source=FbMain&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=   

This one hits my buttons... 

I know there are alot of dairy farmers really struggling out there right now. For some reason they have received the shaft lately. Unfortunately it will only get worse. You see, as we "progress" by developing alternative "milk" sources we will continue to kill off the dairy man. The grain farmer is cushioned by the Government. Dairy is not receiving the help. 

This wouldn't be a big deal in a free market country, however the government controls the prices. The chemical companies are making record profits (except Monsanto!!-finally a victory) and have been bleeding the farmer out of profits for years. The milk companies are dropping farmers because they are choosing alternative ways to make money. 

Farming is shifting to really big farms (they receive the biggest discounts) and hobby farms (have a town job to pay bills) the middle guys will be gone in a few years. It is a very sad day to watch one not make it in what they desire to do. 

The only way I can see to make a change is to be able to control your own price point.

Here is how one dairy farm figured a way to make it, otherwise they too would be lookin g at the end. 

http://www.dandybreezedairy.com" rel="nofollow - www.dandybreezedairy.com

Yeah, something needs to be done. In my opinion, somethning like price breaks on feed, seed, fertilizer, electric when milk is below say... $20/hundred, or instead a government mandated minimum price for milk calculated by factoring in the total cost of running a farm at any given time. 

But the back of my mind is thinking this is what a free-market system does... all dependent on supply and demand. If farmers could set their prices that they sell milk for, just like a mechanic shop sets their labor rate at say... $50 per hour, they will set their price so they make a profit.

My neighbor (150 cows) that I used to work for part time and my friend (40 cows) whose 8550 I posted about 2 years ago are both trying to survive this drop in milk price.

Farmers can set any price they want on what they produce and sell,but just like a shop that charges $100 hr when everyone else charge $50 they won't get much business.It all gets back to supply and demand.Two things now working consumption of dairy products is down and the really large mega dairies can produce milk cheaper than smaller dairies.Basic economics the more efficient operations will win out over the

less efficient when demand shrinks.Thats the way our system works and it happens in just about all businesses sooner or later.No system or enterprise is forever,times change and businesses have to change or go under.

Calvin Schmidt wrote: I'm a bit hesitant to get into this conversation as a Canadian. I am not a dairy farmer but made a living in silo construction with dairy farmers as our main customer until I sold the farm silo business 25 years ago.  The US dairy situation is very sad indeed. The reality is that it is caused by over supply. The American Dream becomes a Night Mare! We are not having the same problem in Canada due to Supply Management. The perception in the US is that Supply management is run by the government. IT IS NOT. More then 60 years ago Canadian dairy was facing the same issues. The farmers lobbied government for the right to create a marketing board to control farm production and negotiate prices with the processors. It works. The retail prices of milk in the stores is very similar to US retail prices. Production quotas were given to farmers at the time and over time through supply and demand between farmers production quota gained a value. At least once a year the Milk Marketing board looks at cost of production on farms and negotiates prices with processors. Dairy farmers only milk income is from the market place with NO subsidies or government bail outs. In other countries where supply management was scraped, retail milk prices have not fallen and farmers are in the same boat as the US dairy farmers. Canada does not export dairy products and has high tariffs on imports. Trade agreements are constantly trying to chip away at supply management because foreign countries are looking export their over production to Canada. Yes dairy farmers are also getting larger and more efficient here because there is constant pressure to keep prices low. Over 70% of the new barns are installing robot milkers. Canadian dairy farmers are very very efficient. President Trump was beating the drum is Wisconsin about how unfair Canada was to US dairy. The truth was that the Wisconsin milk product that was coming into Canada was not covered by supply management and was coming in duty free. The Canadian processors gave the main supplier in Wisconsin a years notice that they were going to change their source to Canadian suppliers but the processor only gave their farmers one month notice because they thought they could find a new market somewhere else but found that it was already over supplied.  The is a lot of fake news out there.

No subsidies in Canada with dairy? The Canadian consumer subsidizes the dairy system every time they buy any diary product.As far as the trade situation Canada charges around a 70% import duty on US dairy products but expects the US not to charge for their imports to the USA on other things.Not a fair deal at all for the USA so something is going to have to

change on that end of things.Fair Trade is not having one sided trade with one country charging high tariffs and the other charging almost none.Surprising Canadian consumers have put up with the system that gouges them on dairy products as long as they have and even more surprising is that US politicians have allowed this situation to go on as long as it has.

I was in Florida in Feb and did some checking. Milk without the BST (?) injection converted to Canadian dollars was the same. Canada imports approx 2.5 x as much US dairy product as we export back to the US.  There is a lot of fake news out there to make Canada look bad. 

In that case Canada needs to drop the high tariffs and everything will work out fine for

both sides.Why would anyone in the USA want to import Canadian diary products that are priced higher than what we can buy here?

In my own business changes happen all the time. When I started my own silo business in 1968 there were 1986 new concrete silos built in Ontario that year. Declined to about 200 when I sold in 1994 and got into commercial grain silo construction. Today maybe 25 new concrete silos per year. We now have the ability to construct a concrete grain silo up to 100' diameter. Last year we constructed an 86' diameter. Each 4' pour held the same capacity as a 20' x 74' silo. Talk about change!   We can't keep doing the same old -same old.