Milford chronicle., 1962-11-30
Milk For Sole
Ten Cents A QUurf

In spite OF the fact that the aver
age American consumed well over
300 pounds of dairy products last
year, the dairy industry and dairy
farmers are in serious trouble.
They're in a position that is very
difficult to understand and o n e
which few people even want t o
concern themselves with.
The average consumer know s
that the Federal government Is a
big purchaser of milk and m k
products and he keeps wondering
why dairy farmers produce more
and more milk each year when the
supply is more than adequate al
ready.
To understand this problem, we
need to look at the dairy farmer
and try to understand the situa-
ton he's in. Unlike the tradesmen
and most wage earners W h e
livelihoods depend on their train
ing and tools, the dairy farmer is
tied more firmly to his job. To
change occupations is next to i'm
possible.
There are several reasons for
this:
more than so years old he's at
an age when it's difficult to change
occupations.
2. The dairy farmer is likely to
have well over 100000 invested in
land, equipment and cows. d mt
jump to the conclusion that with
this much investment he can re-
tire and draw interest he prob
ably owes lot of money.
3. How would you get your in
vestment out of farming when so
few people are going into the busi-
ness?
Remember, too. that farm people
don't have the security of a re-
tirement program as most wage
earners do -'and they like life
in the country on farm with
cows.
So, those who stay on the farm
have some limitations on moving
and they must compete to remain
there. Each year they're faced with
higher costs Just like your costs of
living. Everything they buy gets
higher and higher and farmers are
big buyers of machinery and sup
plies. Yet they get no more for
their product than they did 10 or
IL years ago. This means the mar
gin of profit is very small and is
often non-existant. II he's going to
stay in business. a dairy farmer
usually Is forced to become more
and more efficient every year. This
usually means getting more milk
from each COW in an effort to keep
the cost Of. production below 10
cents a quart. Strange as 1t may
seem, dairy farmers still get about
10 cents a quart for their milk.
A quick look at recent dairy
COW population figures and tota
milk production indicates dairy
men are very successful in improv-
ing their efficiency. There are few
er dairy cows on farms than in
the past; yet total production has
increased. The number of cows
keeps decreasing continually.
Another way dairyman can in
crease his efficiency and produce
milk for the 10 cents a quart he
gets Is by keeping more cows. He
already has the farm and tn e
equipment and his taxes won't go
up any more by keeping more |
cows. SO 1t will only cost h ex-
ira feed and work to keep 10 or
Is more cows.
1t all adds up to more milk for
the consumers and in the final
analysis, less profit for the total
dairy industry. Thus, we see that
the dairy producers are In high |
cost low price squeeze. They
must do whatever they can to in
crease efficiency il they are to
stay in business and produce milk
for 10 cents quart.
For the most part, dairy pro-
ducers are doing an outstanding
job of producing high quality,
nutritious product that the public
is getting for price that returns
no profit to most producers. But
without them our standard OF liv-
ing would take big drop and
millions OF diets would lack I h e
necessary ingredients for good