They need a baleout. They produce something good. Milk for the public, instead of milking the public.

Local family farms are important to all of us for many reasons.

Leahey and Sanders - please go to bat for these guys.

Joe

question-

I know it is possible to sell raw milk right from the farm.

Can this be done for " conventional" milk? if farmers could sell direct from the farm.. they could cut out the middle-man and get a better price for their milk..

yesno? I don't know that much about the dairy industry.. but it seems to me that once upon a time.. dairies sold direct... why/how has this changed?

tnx

Buy regular feed and don't call it organic.

One problem is simply that as the population becomes older and/or more health-conscious. They are drinking far less cows milk - organic or otherwise.

While I do eat a fair amount of cows milk cheese, I probably buy less than a quart of milk per year.

Current average prices are $3.50/gallon for conventional milk and $6.00/gallon for organic milk. If you drink a gallon a week, the difference is $11 a month. Good health is easily worth $11 a month.

See "Research Makes it Clear: Organic Food is Best for People and Planet" in the current issue of RootStock, available free at: http://www.organicvalley.coop/farm-friends/join-farm-friends/

One of the best reasons for eating organic is to avoid genetically-modified (GM) food. Read the dramatic facts here:

http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opinion-genetically-modified-foods-pose-huge-health-risk

Get a shoppers guide here:

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/DocumentFiles/144.pdf

As to organic dairy farmers, despite the NYT's sky-is-falling article the bigger picture is that:

"Organic milk producers in the United States have suffered much the same fate as conventional milk producers, facing falling milk prices and high feed and energy costs." Nevertheless, conventional milk producers are currently losing three times as much money (per 100 lbs.) as organic milk producers.

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?ContentID=316043

Now is a great time to buy organic -- for your health, for the environment, and for organic farmers.

The problem here is not that the price of Organic milk too high. It that the consumer is not making enough income to support that healthier lifestyle.

The SYSTEM we call Capitalism keeps them poor. If a belly needs to be filled it cheaper to eat at a Macdonalds. (Macdonalds stock is doing very well due to the downturn)

Eating unhealthy foods leads to poorer health which then makes the for profit health care industry even wealthier.

Meanwhile big Governmnet, lobbied by the Cargills and Mosantoes , seek to make it ever more expensive for the Oragnic farmer to thrive. These big multinationals fill the shelves with cheap nutrient poor food while Governments put more and more restrictions in place to make the food grown on the Organic smaller farms more expensive.

11$$ a month may not seem like a lot, but when a family pinching pennies 11$$ a month can be significant. When you add in all the other food groups organic versus non organic you could be talking savings of 80 dollars a month and more by eating the CHEAP mass produced food.

I can tell you what: I've been a regular dairy farmer, then an organic dairy farmer and now a regular dairy farmer again. And I'm through, I'm sold down the river. I cannot justify this anymore, it is insane to do this! In about a month or two, the cows are going. I love cows and animals, but I cannot GIVE you people (and the companies, the corporations you believe in and trust) my milk. It is NOT fair!!!!!

All these years, about 30, I've been cheated, harassed, swindled and made to work like a slave. Over the years, this abuse has only gotten worse. I have never been a bad person to deserve the treatment and misuse I've gotten. Only wanted to work outside, with animals, setting my own schedule and not having to be around people much. I didn't want to be around people much as a young man, I like my individuality and privacy. At the same time, I love certain people enough that I married and raised a fine family and have been a good neighbor. Now, I hate almost ALL of you.

I will be very glad to see people starve, but not the ones that are starving now. The richer you are, the more I hope you STARVE.

nedlud

On the other side of the coin, I haven't been able to buy Organic Valley milk at my grocery store for the the last month or so.

"nedlud May 30th, 2009 1:43 pm

... I love cows and animals, but I cannot GIVE you people (and the companies, the corporations you believe in and trust) my milk. It is NOT fair!!!!!"

I AGREE that it's not fair, but what I'd like to see for a [fair] solution is consumers being able to buy raw milk directly from farmers; cutting out the middle cies, profiteers. This wouldn't make it possible for a dairy farmer to have a high sales volume, unless the farmer additionally sold through middle-party distributors, but cutting them out as much as possible should be profitable for farmers; I think.

Of course in states where laws require pasteurisation there is a need for the related middle-party, but I've read that there are states in the U.S. (raw is banned [nationally], in Canada, so under federal law!) that allow selling raw milk directly to consumers, and I think that the dairy farmers and consumers in these states should emphasise raw milk. The only potential problem I'm aware of is when farmers don't keep their cows healthy, neglecting hygiene.

Our ancestors always lived with raw milk, never pasteurised, and I've read that scientific researchers believe that people today tend to develop many more allergies than in the past due to not having raw milk. The bacteria in it is useful for the development of our immune systems when we're young children, apparently; and believably.

However, I also think dairy farmers and meat animal farmers should be looking into providing more for local markets, and converting the farms, much of them anyway, into crop farms for vegetables, fruits and herbs, spices. If I could have a farm, then I wouldn't want a large one; only large enough to be able to produce a fair amount of crops, and maybe milk (cow or goat) and meat (chickens, maybe rabbits, ... small animals), for local and regional consumers. Such a farm could be five acres, perhaps less, in terms of land that'd actually be cultivated anyway.

Whenever a person wants to grow to a large scale operation the person is "begging for trouble". It's bound to lead to business problems, like lack of fairness; for the initial producers, as well as for consumers.

Governments should definitely lift, obsolete, the laws against selling raw milk and consumers, with willing farmers, should be able to buy [directly] from the farmers! The governments cannot ethically maintain or legislate anything contrary to this. They can monitor for health reasons, but can't ethically legislated againt selling and consuming raw milk!

However, I don't think I'd ever want to be in the dairy business, anyway. Having had a number of relatives who were dairy farmers, knowing they had to work 365 days a year; no way! I definitely would not want to do that. They didn't work non-stop every day, but still needed to be present for the morning and evening milking, cleaning the barn or cow stalls, etcetera, every day.

And I wouldn't want to farm food crops only for the sake of income. It'd be because of really liking or loving the outdoors, Nature, being out in it, for working, hiking, ... many hours a day, day after day ..., and I liked growing food plants when having done this back in the 1980s. Cropping is also a form of farming that provides opportunities for plenty of excellent education; given the varying needs of different plants and their variety of benefits for our health. It'd be a [full] experience, instead of only one due to money interest.

That would make it easier to do or get by with lower, but nevertheless adequate, income. Still, however, I would not easily accept lack of fairness; would definitely refuse to accept it, if it was feasible to do so. I would not like to be treated unfairly in market terms, but then NO ONE does! No one.

Farmers in Quebec were horribly treated by middle cies, which were outrageously aided and abetted by the government of this province. The middle cies were the slaughterhouse cies, milk-processing cies, and grocery store chains, while the hellbent government saw to it that the farmers did not receive justice; definitely, irrefutably, and clearly (for anyone who paid some attention to the news reports) saw to it that justice was not something the farmers would receive. The suicide rate among Quebec farmers had risen to 10% or higher over the past few years, certainly since 2005 when the present PM was first elected anyway; but possibly also before. I read a report on suicide rates in the USA two or three years ago and it said that the highest rate was in (I believe) Washington state, or maybe Oregon, while the reason stated for this was the climate, apparently not enough sunny days during the year. The same report said there was a comparable population in North America in terms of the rate of suicide and that it was in the province of Quebec, but the reason was starkly different. The problem in Quebec was all of the injustice(s) against the farmers, rending rather very, very poor. There were families working 60 hours and more a week, the father, probably mother, and perhaps some children all working, and the net income for the family was said to be around $12,000 a [year]! It was entirely due to the gluttony of the middle cies and the criminal, despotic, ... conduct of the government.

Consumers should have been marching and stomping in the streets in defence of the farmers, but "all was quiet" in sleepy Quebec province.

"GwNorth May 30th, 2009 12:55 pm

The problem here is not that the price of Organic milk too high. It that the consumer is not making enough income to support that healthier lifestyle."

YOU obviously don't live in Canada, or not in the province of Quebec, anyway.

"Naturally May 30th, 2009 1:23 pm

Current average prices are $3.50/gallon for conventional milk and $6.00/gallon for organic milk. If you drink a gallon a week, the difference is $11 a month. Good health is easily worth $11 a month."

A GALLON a week of milk, for one person? Are you joking? People definitely have no such need for milk; per individual, a half of a gallon a week is plenty, and even less likely is sufficient. Adults don't need much milk, at all, really.

Living in the province of Quebec, Canada, we get milk not in gallons and quarts, but in litres, and I buy a 2-litre carton of whole milk now and then. It lasts me, drinking it alone, over two weeks; usually lasting around three weeks.

I just wish we could get raw milk, but to be able to get any would require sneaking into farmers' dairy barns at night and milking a cow by hand, or stealing from a farmer's large milk vat(s), which of course would be the quicker way. Farmers wouldn't notice anything missing, for I'd be stealing only for my own consumption anyway. They wouldn't notice a gallon less or more per month, or week, probably even day.

Raw milk is nationally outlawed in Canada; by the incompetent and fascist, ... federal government and the aiding and abetting provincial governments.

Prices here are roughly twice what you say they are in the U.S.A. A 2-litre carton of pasteurised whole milk, so 3.5% m.f., costs around $3.30 or $3.40, while the same volume of organic milk is about $2 more.

A littre has 33.8oz, as opposed to a U.S. quart having 32oz, btw.

When the organic milk was around $4 or a little more just a few years ago, I tried it and found it better than non-organic, but certainly won't buy it at over $5 for only two litres; not even when 2L lasts me nearly 3 weeks.

It's a lot more expensive than gasoline. A litre of regular grade gasoline is now selling for around 98 cents, locally, while a 2-litre carton of non-organic milk costs around $3.30, so $1.65 per litre.

Buying a single litre carton of non-organic milk is around $2, so a little less expensive when buying 2L cartons; yet the 1L cartons sell. Stores don't stock anywhere as many of the 1L cartons as there are 2L ones, but still stock and therefore sell them. Perhaps these are used by people who just want milk for while they're at work, on the job; and while $2 seems like a lot for 1L of milk, it at least provides a lot more nutrition and energy than 1L bottles of water, which sell for over $1 here. So these people get more "bank for their bucks" by buying 1L cartons of milk.

Hmmm, and our governments don't war on other countries for milk, but do for petrol. Ha. Huh. ... Oh, the Big Petrol. "chiefs" probably or surely figure that there's less profit with milk, given that the overall sales volume is much greater with or for petrol; and also because the USA doesn't have any significant amount of petrol. resources of its own. They realise that it'd be a little difficult to hybridise cows so that they'd produce petrol., instead of milk. So they decide that war (of aggression), or rather wars, are the solution (as long as The People aren't informed of these details, or certainly not by the Big Petrol., Big MIC, Big Finance, ... "chiefs", anyway).

Stop the wars and legalise raw milk for the general consumer!

Why does it cost $500,000 to convert to organic?

We need to get rid of federal regulation of this. I was nervous when USDA decided to regulate organic and I think now that it is a mistake.

"GwNorth May 30th, 2009 4:59 pm

...

I DO live In Canada and I grew up on the farm.

Do YOU think a farmer can profit selling Organic milk at 4$ per 2 litres?"

Sure he or she could. THE PROBLEM isn't that $4 for 2L is not enough money; it's the price-gouging middle-party(ies) and the fascist, ... government federally outlawing raw milk that's the problem. If that law didn't exist or was obsoleted, then consumers could buy directly from farmers and if they charged $4 for 2L, then they'd be doing [GREAT]! After all, good dairy cows produce [gallons] per day; imperial gallons, to boot.

Back in the 1970's a cousin of mine was still selling raw milk to locals who went directly to his milk house and he sold a full imperial gallon of his Holstein raw milk for $2.25 and was [not] poor. He inherited the farm from his father though, so this meant getting it very inexpensively, if needing to pay anything at all, besides property taxes and possibly a tax for operating a business, the farm. He continued selling to locals he felt he could trust after the government(s) outlawed the selling of raw milk, but he didn't continue for long, because fines were set at something like $1,000 for the farmer, if and when caught selling raw milk.

Until then, he raised his family, him, his wife, and three sons lived off of this farm, and they lived in the second floor of his father's house, while his mother and sister continued to live downstairs; and the latter got milk free, had a garden, etcetera. These people didn't live in luxury, but definitely did not live in poverty, either. One of his sons continued the farm later on, while the three sons worked the farm with their father until they reached the age of 18, at which point the family expanded by buying a dairy farm that was being basically abandoned by other cousins of mine, and bought a third dair farm some miles away, using the latter for calving and raising the calves until ready for milking.

Now $2.25 for an imperial gallon of milk would not be enough today, not even non-organic, that is, "conventional", milk; but $4 for 2L of organic milk would be plenty, especially if farmers learned to grow much or enough of their own feed. If they want to depend on Big Agri. for animal feed, then consumers should wisely raise their own milk cows; people who have a house with enough property anyway. It doesn't take much space to be able to care for one's own cow. My grandfather did it for many years with perhaps two cows for a while, probably when his children were living at home, and when they left he had one cow. The space he needed for this was [insignificant].

That cuts out the farmer and Big Agri. If farmers want to shove Big Agri. down consumers' throats, then the farmers making this choice should live by their choices and suffer the consequences.

It's easy for them to avoid doing that; there's more than one way to do so. One way is for people, like with the Canadian movement for legalising raw milk for consumers, a movement I learned of through CBC.ca, for them and farmers to push together for the governments to legalise raw milk. Another way is for dairy farmers to drastically reduce this and switch to growing food crops; either switching much to that, or else entirely. We don't have to wait for the governments to legalise raw milk for dairy farmers to switch to food crop farming though.

Human adults have nearly no need at all for milk, and teenagers have little need. It's mostly babies that need milk, but women's milk is the best for them. Once a child is done with breast-feeding, then a human doesn't really need milk any longer. That's Nature's way and no human is more right than Nature is about what our bodies naturally need.

So there's really only "so much" sympathy to have for dairy farmers; but wherein they deserve our support, we should provide it.

I went to my cousin's milk house one day to get some milk and right outside was a large area of the ground covered with what looked like possibly a white powder. I looked at that seriously wondering what the heck it was and asked him about it, which is when he told me that he could no longer risk selling raw milk and that the fines were high for doing so. He added that the white on the ground was a lot of milk he had to dump, because of the legal limits of production quotas. Once exceeded, the excess had to be thrown out ... to [waste].

That's all milk he couldn't sell; many gallons of it. Instead, he had to throw it away, to [waste], yet had to pay the feed related to the production of all of this milk. And this wasn't a one-time thing for him; it happened plenty of times for him, and surely other Canadian or at least Quebec farmers.

Don't forget that the consumers are being [robbed] by the government and the middle-parties, too; instead of only the farmers being robbed and mistreated. Consumers aren't as badly mistreated as the farmers are, but still are mistreated in all of this business.

"GwNorth May 30th, 2009 4:59 pm

...

Are you aware, as example, that the Farmer gets the same price for a Bushel of wheat in DOLLARS (unadjusted for inflation) that they were receiving 40 years ago?"

THAT IS NOT consumers' fault. It's the fault of the fascist, ... government and the large middle-party cies. Blame the guilty; not others.

Of course the general population should be more active about the f*cked ways of the government and large cies, and the general public is at fault for not living up to this civic [duty]. But consumers aren't responsible for the pigging-out by the middle-party cies; the government is keyly at fault, while the middle-party cies are at fault for diabolically tempting, say, government officials to legislate in ways favouring the cies, instead of the general population. If the opposite happened with government, then, for one thing, we would start to be able to say that we have some real democracy, but besides for that important point, we'd importantly have greater fairness for the farmers.

GwNorth:

"If the workers received fairer wages, they can afford to pay a farier price to the local farmer for their product. It goes without saying that the control of the food supply must be taken away from the Middle man. We need more direct produce to table policies."

The middle man is [the] problem, with the government being responsible, most of all! After all, it's the government that legislates, not the middle man cies.

People always pushing for ever higher incomes is the sick capitalist way to run a society. Push for and get higher incomes, and cost of living always consequently rises; ending up little or no better off than before, while always also increasing the disparity between the rich and the poor, the "haves and the have-nots"! The "have-nots" or the "haves-too-little" need better incomes, but whenever it rises a little for them, the whole racket scheme is repeated, with merchants, landlords, etcetera, raising their prices. It doesn't happen with all goods and services, but nevertheless happens and far too much.

In Quebec the minimum wage was raised to $8.50 an hour in 2008 and it was raised again as of May 1st, to $9 an hour. Great; this theoretically should help min. wage earners. Theoretically, and temporarily. We'll see prices rise again, surely. The "system" has usually worked this way.

Raise min. wage and farm labour becomes more expensive to farmers, so they want to raise the prices for their produce, and when they do this, middle man cies raise their prices, including when they'd still be making plenty of profit without raising their prices.

We have no need for half-assed solutions. We need fully valid and sound solutions. And to be able to analyse the problem in order to determine the solution requires that we put our little emotional reactions aside; because finding the real problems and solutions requires rational reasoning, not emotions. Becoming angry is okay, as long as it's related to rationally understanding what an important problem and its cause are, and being blocked from being able to implement a suitable solution(s). Being angry in irrational terms is never okay.

I want all beings to be happy. I want beings who are called to raise organic dairy to be able to do so, and to make a decent living doing so.

But human beings really don't need cow milk. Human babies do well on their mother's breast milk. And a very tiny percentage of human babies do not thrive on their mother's breast milk, for whatever reason, and they need something else in the early months of their young lives, but human infants don't need cow's milk.

None of us need cow milk. It's a habit, a romantic, cultural habit.

don't get me wrong. I have always liked milk.

I moved to CA in 2006 and at that time, I drank one gallon a skin, organic milk every week. I know because I bought one gallon a week, live alone, and drank it.

But in February of 2009, I moved from one CA city to another, which mandated a change in my grocery-shopping routine. A few weeks within moving in February, I bought a half gallon of organic skim and then I tossed most of it out when it became spoiled.

Apparently, I have stopped drinking milk. I still drink cream in my coffee (yum!) and I still like and love milk but my body is kinda done with milk at the moment.

We are all mired in the corporate/greed/dominator culture that tells tells tells us what to buy and what to eat. Most of us have lifelong food habits that are more a result of reacting to advertising and corporate dominator values. Few of us have been able to grow up listening to our bodies talk, listening to our own inner wisdom and making the right choices for us.

It has been established by any number of rigorous scientific studies that humans don't need cow milk. But a large, romantic industry that we all like to imagine is our shared cultural past has arisen around the romance of dairy farming and cows eating grass on sloping hillsides on the horizon and our ideas get all romanticized and gooey. . . and the corporate dominator culture creates these ideas. Look at the icons on organic milk products: it evokes an olden-days glow of cows on hills grazing in a romantic, nonexistent era.

I am way sorry that some good people are getting hurt in an economic crunch, having converted to organic only to see the organic dairy market collapse. This is real, meaningful human misfortune that wounds me, I regret this wound and I share a tiny part of it becaxuse this is my world and my culture.

AND. . . . . AND. . . we don't need cow milk. To eliminate cow milk overnight would unleash a lot of economic chaos and eliminating cow milk overnight will not happen. The corporate dominator culture ewants it to stay so it will.

But we don't need cow milk. Or any milk. I think vegans do very well without dairy, yes?

Me? I love milk but I don't drink it these days. I have only bought organic dairy for a long, long time. I have a 27 year old daughter and I decided I would not feed her the hormones that are always found in nonorganic dairy products. Most of my 55 years I have drunk about a gallon of skim organic milk a week. Nowadays, I drink none.

It is a myth, a fiction, that I need to drink milk at age 55 to prevent osteoporosis. There are lots of ways to get calcium into my body and milk is not one of the best sources of calcium.

"cassandra May 30th, 2009 4:46 pm

Why does it cost $500,000 to convert to organic?

We need to get rid of federal regulation of this. I was nervous when USDA decided to regulate organic and I think now that it is a mistake."

THE SAME question crossed my mind. What the heck is involved for the cost to be $500,000 to covert to organic, I immediately wondered.

Federal regulation is perhaps okay, if properly, ethically done, but then this is only or mostly in terms of consumers purchasing organic produce from non-local sources. By requiring legally defined norms for organically produced products or food items to be labelled organic and this requiring that farms be inspected by qualified people, consumers too far away to be able to visit the originating farms in order to inspect the operations are supposed to be able to have greater assurance that what they buy indeed is organically produced at the source.

Farmers could go without saying "Organically certified" and, instead, simply say that their produce is achieved without the use of synthetic chemicals harmful to the environment and people. But consumers who are too far away again couldn't visit the farms in order to verify that the labelling is truthful. So for such consumption, inspections and certification might again be needed or certainly justified.

Certification, however, isn't always truthful. There have been reports of fraud with supposedly organic farms, some of the farmers making false claims about following organic production norms.

If I had some land to cultivate, then my crops would be organically grown, without getting it certified and, therefore, without being able to legally state that the food was produced according to organic farming norms. Or it'd be grown in an equivalent way, such as using sustainable or environmentally friendly, safe, methods, which includes permaculture; and I'd state this in fully honest terms to consumers.

I would and do not need more. There are good methods that people can't get "certified organic" approval for, but while being rather organically produced foods anyway. I cultivated my garden organically, but maybe there were some things I didn't additionally do that are required for "certified organic" approval.

I didn't use any, but have read and do know that some chemicals are also fine to use. F.e., lime is a natural substance and is chemical. Everything that exists has chemical make-up.

It's the toxic stuff that farmers need to stop using; these poisons for the environment and us.

They also need to stop deep tilling, but many farmers take forever to get educated about how to work correctly with Nature.

"Naturally May 30th, 2009 6:50 pm

Opinions without verifiable facts don't mean much. I could assert, for example, that thousands of bigfoot ape-men live in giant underground caverns beneath the surface of the Earth. Doesn't make it true."

WELL, THEN, stop producing them. After all, it's what you just posted. You provide no verifiable indication as to what the f*ck you're talking about, like whose post you're meaning to refer to; and many readers at CD post in the same way while referring to posts considerably separated from their own.

"Naturally May 30th, 2009 6:42 pm

Organic farmers worked and worked and worked, for years, to implement national organic standards and persuade USDA to adopt them. The standards are purposely strict so that organic really means organic, and consumers can rely on the certification. It costs a lot for producers, dairies and retailers to convert to organic practices and be able to achieve those high standards."

IT ISN'T NEED when buying directly from local producers.

I don't know nothing about nothing but that there is a long history of conflict between bankers and farmers. In boom-bust cycle after cycle people have lost their farms and the ability to independently make a living. The latest financial "crisis" is no different. The bankers created it, profited from it, and then got bailed out at our expense. The last thing they'll do is get us to fight amongst ourselves instead of seeing clearly how this banking thing works. If anyone has some to time to read, I recommend William Greider's Secrets of the Temple: how the Federal Reserve runs the country.

>>Now $2.25 for an imperial gallon of milk would not be enough today, not even non-organic, that is, "conventional", milk; but $4 for 2L of organic milk would be plenty, especially if farmers learned to grow much or enough of their own feed. If they want to depend on Big Agri.

You hit on it but do not seem to recognize the significance of it.

4$$ for 2l of milk is plenty only IF a farmer is not carrying massive debt which most must do in order to start farming and to get their enterprise off the ground.

The difference between a farmer who inherits his/her land and one that must buy it is night and day.

This is made worse by the Multinational Corporations who receive massive subsidies from Government , are able to buy farmlands and then use accounting tricks available only to the Corporations to write off the expense.

This drives prices up.

If we have a marketplace where one group can inherit a farm and another must put up hundreds of thousands to buy the same then we can have one group having unfair competitive advantage.

Due to demand , prized farmland near my uncles place near Calmar Alberta is now over 1 million dollars for a half section. It goes up every year.

What "family type farmer" can afford those prices and make a living selling milk at 2 bucks a liter?

Now as to solutions. I would not see anything wrong with ending the concept of the PRIVATE ownership of land (specifically farmland) altogether.

A family would then lease the land from the Government for a lifetime and if no sons/daughters wish to take over on his or her parents death , the land would be leased to another family.

The stake of the Government in holding ultimate title would not be to profit off the same. It would be to ensure a steady and safe Food supply for the state and its citizens.

"Tree Fitz May 30th, 2009 6:37 pm

I want all beings to be happy. I want beings who are called to raise organic dairy to be able to do so, and to make a decent living doing so.

But human beings really don't need cow milk. Human babies do well on their mother's breast milk."

GOAT MILK is surely sufficient when a woman is unable to breast-feed her own child and helpful women aren't available to providing this nutritional service when the child's mother is unable to do so. And being the small animals goats are, they require FAR less fresh water to raise, compared to large cows.

I recently read that while people of the USA and Canada consume mostly cow milk, when consuming milk, that is, Europeans apparently consume mostly goat milk, and I'd sure like some, but it's expensive.

Oh, btw, I wouldn't bother putting cow's milk on a woman's breast milk though. Okay, okay, I realise that you meant 'or', instead of 'on'.

Free Fitz:

"None of us need cow milk. It's a habit, a romantic, cultural habit."

Nothing romantic about it at all, really.

Free Fitz:

Free Fitz:

"I moved to CA in 2006 and at that time, I drank one gallon a skin, organic milk every week. I know because I bought one gallon a week, live alone, and drank it."

You should, instead, consume one gallon a week of whole milk and then you can skip eating; or drastically reduce the amount of food you additionally consume, anyway. I only have skim milk if I'm at someone else's place and it's all they have; otherwise, I buy only whole milk, needing something substantial for quieting hunger and providing an energy boost.

The saturated animal fat in milk might not be good for us, but with the lean, low-fat (no, not goofy Weight Watchers, ... bs, but just naturally lean) diet that I have, I can surely do okay with the fat in milk. Besides, 2 litres lasts me at least a couple of weeks; as stated in an earlier post in this CD page.

We do need fats in our diets, while minimizing saturated animal fats. So say the experts, anyway.

Romantic, you say? Reading further on in your post I see what you mean and agree; the Big Agri. business has certainly done as you say, trying to romance consumers into drinking and therefore buying milk when they really do not need it and, if they're to consume it, then volume should be seriously reduced; for people who consume plenty, anyway.

I don't consume enough to worry about over-consuming milk. And I need to do something about hunger for when we feel real hunger, then I recently learned that experts say that this happens because our bodies are in [need] of nutrition. Whole milk provides an inexpensive way of seeing to this additional hunger. If I could afford more for food, then I'd go this route, but finances are too limited, so milk is a relatively inexpensive solution.

An alternative that I can consume is almond milk, not being able to consume soy milk due to soy causing gout to form; for myself and my father. There's also rice milk, but I consume enough rice as it is, and if almond milk is made with real almonds, which I think it is, then almonds are very healthy nuts, so I go for a couple or few litres of almond milk most months. It's more expensive than cow's milk though, costing nearly twice as much.

You speak of hormones in "conventional" cow's milk and this is a concern for me, also; but organic at over $5 for roughly half of a gallon (US) is just too much for my wallet. If it wasn't for that reason, then I'd pay the extra $2 or so; although still find it unfortunately is over-priced. That's not due to the farmers though. It's due to Canadians not working enough to get the governments here to govern fairly. I could buy three pairs of pants in the U.S. for what it costs for one pair of the very same thing, and when it wasn't three items, instead, of one, it was often two and while less expensive than one here; just not enough to be able to account for three of item x, instead of two.

The import tarrifs were eliminated, and the Canadian currency is comparable enough to the currency of the USA, now. So I don't know what it is with the merchants here, but they evidently are greedy.

Where does all of this money go, I wonder. There are serious sales during Christmas shopping season, many things being reduced by 50%, which (I have read from reasonable people) gives a relatively accurate idea of what the items should be selling for year-round, btw. Serious sales for Christmas while greedily and nonsensically gouging the rest of the year is [not] a way to run or participate in a democratic, ... society; but greed and selfishness evidently take precedence or are prioritised.

Tree Fitz,

I have a correction to make. Where I said that there's nothing really romantic about the milk industry in reply to you having written, "None of us need cow milk. It's a habit, a romantic, cultural habit.", this was a spontaneous reaction on my part. Subsequently reading more on this in your post it became clear that you're certainly right. The dairy industry has definitely done as you say; romancing consumers into consuming when we never needed it to begin with, except for little children, during what normally would be their breast-feeding years or months, how ever long it lasts.

Just like the rest of Big Agri., they all work on romancing people to consume things that we either have no need for, or which we should not consume at all.

"War is a Racket". It applies to more than wars fought with military forces. Humanity is basically warred upon from all directions due to Big Business "elites".

"rtdrury May 30th, 2009 9:54 pm

Organic certification is just another part of the capitalist superstructure enabling people to ignore the interconnectedness of our physical and spiritual needs. Such ignorance reinforces the capitalist system, in a vicious circle. Know your producer. Go local"

EASIER said than done. Not everyone has any local opportunities.

Organic cert. is not really necessary when buying foods from local producers who allow locals interested in becoming customers to visit, for a friendly and casual inspection.

When purchasing foods distributed over long distances and from other countries, however, organic cert. can be good. It will be good, as long as its used truthfully. If produce isn't really produced in organic ways, then they must not be labeled as if produced organically.

While inspectors of governments, say, can be honest, to err is human and too many humans accept bribes. So a farmer saying his or her produce is organically certified potentially can be lying about this. These farmers would, certainly should, be eventually (hopefully, soon) caught and fined seriously enough, with the news of the crime being made known to the public, nationally and to people of countries importing foods from the guilty farmer(s). But the whole government system is corrupt, so how much guarantee can we really expect for organic cert.?

Nonetheless, the principle is good. The problem is being able to prevent fraud, which is difficult to do when inspectors accept bribes; if and when they do, and I figure some must've.

Buying locally grown produce is great; it's fresher and therefore lasts longer, while usually also being tastier. But even while there are some local producers in the Sherbrooke, Quebec, area, f.e., it's not feasible for everyone here to be able to get ahold of these farmers' produce. It'd be seriously difficult for me to be able to get my hands on some of this produce, due to not having motorised transportation and not feeling like walking miles to go buy locally grown vegetables and spices.

And people in large metro. areas often don't have any nearby farmers at all.

Impractical answers don't provide realistic solutions!

You can isolate one item and show it costs little more to, for instance, drink a gallon of organic milk a week than non-organic.....

But I can't afford to eat organically which is a drag. I don't like chemicals, I don't smoke them. I grow organic pot. It's funny, my plants eat better than I do. And drink. Not a drop of tap water has ever touched them. A natural spring only.

Things change, and if my circumstances ever should,
I'd stop eating poisons at my mealtimes if I could.

"To keep the farm going, he has dipped into his retirement savings and dropped his health insurance."

The Robber Barons that own Congress want everyone to be required to buy their 'health' insurance.
No more 'dropping' it and eating your retirement and your child's tuition just to keep surviving.
Our Neo-Corporate masters are genocidally intent on feeding on the lower classes. All 99% of us.
But such is farming, boom and bust, risk and reward. Mister Preston is still relatively young to start a new career should he choose, as are many bankers

Well, there are a number of things going through Congress and the Senate that will doom the small farmer, to the enrichment of the mega agribusiness cartels. NAIS is one and there is another, whose designation I have forgotten. These are all bureaucratic nightmares of record keeping and fines for non-compliance that will bury the small farmer, the hobby farmer, and other organic suppliers.

I have one idea that might help a bit, though it is only a drop in the bucket, it is a start.

Divert the three billion dollars per year of our tax money that is currently paid to the IDF to kill Palestinians and any other middle eastern peoples that inhabit their "God given land," to help our own people, including the farmers.

This could have a twofold benefit. Once the Israelis lost their warmongering support, perhaps we could cut into a few hundred billion per year that goes to the Pentagon, and likewise another few that goes to the CIA and other mercenary forces. Then, they couldn't afford to be killing peasants in far off lands and some measure of peace might descend upon the earth.

Of course, this would probably require castrating the banksters so they couldn't continue to multiply. ;-)

Milk in the SW is produced in feedlots packed with cows. The cost of whole milk on sale? $2.00 a gallon, or a little over .50 cents a liter.

The feedlots are NOT making any money at that price! How can an organic farmer survive?

They can only sell the fact that their product IS superior to milk from overcrowded cows working overtime on cheap feed and antibiotics.

Our local dairy closed a while back. The cows were allowed to graze in the summer, and were fed grain in the winter. The taste of the milk changed according to what was growing in the pasture in the summer. They didn't claim organic, but for the most part they were.

I think $2 a gallon milk put their $4 dollar milk out of business. As Nedlud says, for the work you put in it, it's not worth it to compete with the big guys who are cutting each others throat, cutting every corner to make a profit.

For those who have expressed unfounded or misinformed opinions (or for anyone who may be interested), a good, historical primer on USDA Organic certification is here:

http://www.organicvalley.coop/resources/reading-room/lipson/page-2/

For more, check this article:

http://www.organicvalley.coop/why-organic/organic-standards/united-we-farm/

It begins:

"We, the farmers and staff of Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative, consider ourselves pioneers in the organic movement, a vanguard upholding the integrity of the USDA organic seal.

When we first gathered in 1988, there was no clear definition about what it means to be an organic dairy producer, other than the dedication to a production system in harmony with nature, producing food that's healthy for people and the planet. Working towards an organic standard, we came together at the table with others who care deeply about organic agriculture. This is one of the most wonderful things about organics: It unites farmers and foodies, environmentalists and eaters, scientists and social justice mentors."

Organic farmers need to organize. With energy prices moderating there is no reason why feed prices should sky rocket except that small farmers have no bargaining power.
Organizing should provide other efficiencies so they could drop prices and make them competitive.

still haven't really gotten an answer to my earlier question.

if i remember correctly ( I live in VT), and milk from VT goes out of state, CT?, to get processed, and then comes back to the state... I may be mistaken.. as I noted, I am not a dairy expert...

but it strikes me as strange that a gallon of milk produced right here in this state, costs more than a gallon of oil produced halfway around the world, and dug up from several miles below ground..

this isn't to say that I think milk is unfairly expensive..

but there are things that strike me as curious.. and I would like to understand more about the process of getting milk to market, and why the farms cannot do whatever milk needs, and/ or sell directly to consumers.. and yes, I am aware that raw milk can be sold directly from the farms..

so- what is homogenizing? what is pasteurising? how is it done? and how can we help farmers get safe milk directly to buyers.. localism/ etc..?