• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Rich Dairy Farmers

MsSage

Well-known member
obama said he will not give any more money to the farmers who have plenty of money and are making more money than ever before.
Hmmmmm since I know 99% of yall are beefers let me let yall in on a scary fact. We have 3 dairies finishing the paperwork to file chapter 11. We have 12-14 in a 75 mile radius. How many more are starting the paperwork? They cant afford the feed bill with the price of milk so low.
Milk for Jan was $10.41 per hundredweight. There are 11.63 gallons in a hundredweight which means the farmer gets .895 per gallon.
Please tell me I am paying $4 a gallon and the farmer is getting rich???????????
Milk prices KEEP dropping and shows NO sign of going back up any time soon. How many dairies have to close before people see the impact?
 

CattleCo

Well-known member
When the dairy business suffer, all of animal agriculture will suffer. The beef cattle industry is going to get their dose of this in 2010 along with the grain farmers. Cheap Corn.....Cheap Cattle. It is going to get real ugly in agriculture. Hold on to the rope! :(
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
And today, he promised no subsidies to Farms with revenues of $500, 000 or more.

Using your numbers a farm would only be able to produce 1530 Gallons per day, before subsidies would be cut off.

The average dairy cow producing 17000lbs/year (low end of production) brings in about $5.80/day, or 55.7 lbs. For a total of $1769/year

You would not be entitled to subsidies if you milked more than 283 cows/day.

2/3 of dairy farms in 2006, were over 200 cows. And over 50% were over 500.

Unless they hide these subsidies, count on more bankruptcies.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
The whole thing is UGLY. Name one business who won't be impacted in
a bad way before this is over. Not being smart, I just don't know anyone who will dodge this bullet...well...except for the politicians...

I'm sorry to hear that MsSage. I have friends in Missouri who have a small dairy. They were fiinally able to take a vacation after being
in business 35 years. I'm sure they are suffering now along with
all the others.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Again I disagree....This was one of the places I agreed with Bush- these subsidies for the big corporates and the rich- many of which don't even do any agricultural work or live on the place(s) should be cut...But GW and Congress waffled to the lobbyiest of those wealthy and Big corporate farms- and never got it done...

I think Bush was looking at cutting them above $250,000...

And Cattleco- when did Cheap Corn start meaning Cheap Cattle :???:

The feeders all tell us the reason they couldn't pay more for cattle was the cost of feed (corn) had gone so high....
 

MsSage

Well-known member
many of which don't even do any agricultural work or live on the place(s)
Let me assure you of the dairies here all owners live and work the farm. Yes the owner of the dairy I am at also has beefers but he is always around. He even helped pull a calf less than 3 days ago.
I have asked here and around town "What is a corporate farm?" We have 3000+ cows, 2000 are being milked 2 & 3 times a day. Is that a corp farm?
No one can give me an answer they say well its owned by a company. Hmmm Most Dairies are owned by companies to protect the family.
I have started to to tell people corp farms are just another way to cause a rift between the people.

OT you spend most of your time on here or by your own words at the local watering hole.......Do you really have cows? Or if you do, are you a corp farm since you never do any work with them?

Do you see what I am trying to show you?
 

Tex

Well-known member
Ms. Sage: " They cant afford the feed bill with the price of milk so low.
Milk for Jan was $10.41 per hundredweight. There are 11.63 gallons in a hundredweight which means the farmer gets .895 per gallon. "

This is the real problem. The profits are being absconded by others in the chain than the producer who has not been able to pass costs on -- largely because there is not adequate competition for farmer's goods at the farm level.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FarmToConsumer/pricespreads.htm#dairy
 

garn

Well-known member
http://www.whotv.com/news/who-obama-cuts-farm-payment-022609,0,2922706.story

On a chilly February afternoon on this Dallas county farm, it didn't take long for details surrounding President's Obama's budget plan to reach Dan Golightly.

"With the economic outlook the way it is," said Golightly, "And the news everyday in the papers and on the TV and on the radio news like this is just another kick in the teeth."

Inside Obama's $3.6 trillion budget proposal includes changing the rules on how the US government subsidizes farming by paying growers based on gross sales instead of size which Dan says penalizes farmers for being successful.

"I think that's exactly right, farming is like ay business the economy has scaled, it takes a minimum amount of acres just to be out here and to make a profit and there going to come out here with a new rule and just cap you right off the top," Golightly said.

Under the Obama plan farmer's with gross sales of $500-thousand or more would no longer receive direct payments from the government which Dan says most farmers count on during tough times.

"When the market swings south like it has now, and all my expenses have continued to climb, I'm going to need those," he added.

Iowa secretary of agriculture Bill Northey says a subsidy cap is something he expected given the though economic climate but with someone like former Iowa governor Tom Vilsak and as the current US secretary of Ag, the proposed changes did come as a surprise.

"We get about $500 million a year in Iowa in direct payments, there some numbers that say well over half of that could go away with this proposal; that's $250 million or more that would not be available for farmers to pay their bills and lot of other folks." Vilsack couldn't be reached for comment.

Dan says no matter what lawmakers decided in the coming weeks Iowa farmers will press on. "We learned to live to farm bills of the past, we'll learn to live with this one too," Golightly said.

I'm not surprised Vilsack wasn't available for comment, he's probably too busy with his nose shoved up Obama's rear end :roll:
 

TSR

Well-known member
MsSage said:
many of which don't even do any agricultural work or live on the place(s)
Let me assure you of the dairies here all owners live and work the farm. Yes the owner of the dairy I am at also has beefers but he is always around. He even helped pull a calf less than 3 days ago.
I have asked here and around town "What is a corporate farm?" We have 3000+ cows, 2000 are being milked 2 & 3 times a day. Is that a corp farm?
No one can give me an answer they say well its owned by a company. Hmmm Most Dairies are owned by companies to protect the family.
I have started to to tell people corp farms are just another way to cause a rift between the people.

OT you spend most of your time on here or by your own words at the local watering hole.......Do you really have cows? Or if you do, are you a corp farm since you never do any work with them?

Do you see what I am trying to show you?

You are limiting your argument to dairies it seems. Do you think corp grain farms that make in the millions should receive subsidies? Farms where the owner sits behind a desk in some office far removed. Yes Bush did try to limit these subsidies but as I stated earlier met with resistance from his own party especially in the agricultural areas. I know of some farmers here who have received subsidies totalling over a million dollars over the past 5 yrs. With our economy like it is I do think there needs to be limits.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
MsSage said:
many of which don't even do any agricultural work or live on the place(s)
Let me assure you of the dairies here all owners live and work the farm. Yes the owner of the dairy I am at also has beefers but he is always around. He even helped pull a calf less than 3 days ago.
I have asked here and around town "What is a corporate farm?" We have 3000+ cows, 2000 are being milked 2 & 3 times a day. Is that a corp farm?
No one can give me an answer they say well its owned by a company. Hmmm Most Dairies are owned by companies to protect the family.
I have started to to tell people corp farms are just another way to cause a rift between the people.

OT you spend most of your time on here or by your own words at the local watering hole.......Do you really have cows? Or if you do, are you a corp farm since you never do any work with them?

Do you see what I am trying to show you?

I have cows- and grain crops- and hay crops...And you'd freeze your butt crawling out of Shoers bed and calving them about now :wink: 10 Below this morning- but no heifers calved last night....

And back in the 50's and 60's we had a family dairy-besides the range cattle and horses-- of which there were about a dozen dairy cow operations in the county...They all went with the wind with the big Wisconsin/ND/etc dairies and consolidation of the Dairy plants pushing them out of business- and the closing down of the local milk/cream plants and the milk having to be hauled hundreds of miles to be processed... The nearest dairy farm now is probably 200 miles away- and I'm not sure if there even is a Dairy/Milk Processor in Montana since Vita Rich in Havre closed...Probably is- but I know all the milk coming into this area is Meadow Gold- a Dallas Texas operation...
And I don't miss milk cows one bit....

But a lot of dairy price used to be set by the states- and at one time some had quotas just like Canada does....I think California still does too...I know ND did at one time.....

TSR- besides some of these huge farmers making millions- what burns me is when a group of attorneys from Washington buy up huge ranches-then play both the grain game and the hunter game- leaving part of the crop for bird habitat and bringing in their private hunters- and then when the neighbor goes to get some EQUIP money to help pay to fix his irrigation system- he finds its all gone- and guess who got the most of the money :???:

Interesting deal on the news today...They are advising farmer/ranchers that there is now EQUIP money available for fencing- and stock water development on CRP land that came out of CRP last year or will next year...
With depressed cattle prices- and imports of beef from 40+ countries coming in- do we need a government program to push more pasture/cattle... :???:

I say get rid of them all- or at the least- follow the Bush plan of closing the loopholes so no farm/corporate entity/operation can get more than $250,000 in government money....(which is still too much IMHO :roll: )

I have to laugh at all the ranchers that claim they get no subsidies and always gave the farmers a bad time - joshing them about the mailbox bend in the bill of their caps, that came about from peering into the mailbox waiting for the government check-- now with all the newer programs/subsidies, a lot of which are called conservation programs, the cowboys are getting a bigger mailbox roll in their cowboy hats than the farmers had .... :wink: :lol:
 

PrairieQueen

Well-known member
$500,000 gross is not that much. There is a big difference between capping the amount of subsidy they can receive at $250,000 vs cutting off anyone with gross sales of $500,000 or more.

[/b]
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
I do consulting for one particular dairy that grosses well over $1 million per month....and that won't even make it cashflow, let alone show a profit. With a bonus for butterfat, protein and SCC he received $10.72 for Jan. milk. He's paying $284 ton for grain mix alone. Dairy cattle in this area are fed from 26-32 lbs. of grain plus other things. If these who have the ability to better utilize all the available resources can't even make the thing cash flow, just imagine the pickle the small family owned dairy is in that only milks 150-200 head of cattle. Not a pretty sight at all.


OT...tell me you've never taken a nickel of government money in any of your operations??? I just wanna hear it.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Oh I've taken government payments...They pay me yearly for NOT growing barley :D - but really don't play the government game like some do...Some collect off every type government disaster insurance, pasture insurance, drought insurance, CRP program, EQUIP program, loan program, etc. etc...Reminds me of the old days- with the FSA federal loans where the folks went broke, got forgiven all debt by the government, and then some still went broke again... :shock:
I guess they are the smart ones-eh.... :???:

The thing is - dairy farming- is a different game from everything else- and for that reason has been/was regulated for years- and still is in Canada and the European countries...

I know back when we were in the dairy business- the price of milk was set by the state....
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Oh I've taken government payments...They pay me yearly for NOT growing barley :D - but really don't play the government game like some do...Some collect off every type government disaster insurance, pasture insurance, drought insurance, CRP program, EQUIP program, loan program, etc. etc...Reminds me of the old days- with the FSA federal loans where the folks went broke, got forgiven all debt by the government, and then some still went broke again... :shock:
I guess they are the smart ones-eh.... :???:

The thing is - dairy farming- is a different game from everything else- and for that reason has been/was regulated for years- and still is in Canada and the European countries...

I know back when we were in the dairy business- the price of milk was set by the state....[/quote]

Well that was a mistake too, but now it's set by the individual coops and varies as well from one region to th next with additional built in penalties in many instances. There is no way a coop can justify dropping the price of milk by over 50% in less than 6 months.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with people in agribusiness to take advantage of and use every government program available. That doesn't mean I necessarily think it's right...only that it's there and should be utilized. If not it goes back into the general fund and is pissed off somewhere else.
 

Mike

Well-known member
the price of milk was set by the state.

My state, and most others were controlled by a "Milk Control Board".

Not exactly by the state itself, because this board was comprised of milk producers, etc. et/al appointed by the Gov. They had both a duty to consumers AND the producers and usually met a balance.

The thing that used to piss me off more than anything was the "School Milk" prices were low, low, low, and at times the "Surplus" milk was unsubtantiated.

Milk is another commodity I would like to see go back to a localized production market.
 

Tex

Well-known member
PrairieQueen said:
$500,000 gross is not that much. There is a big difference between capping the amount of subsidy they can receive at $250,000 vs cutting off anyone with gross sales of $500,000 or more.

[/b]

I think you are right here, PrairieQueen. We don't need to subsidize larger sizes with larger amounts but they should get whatever everyone else is with the possible exception of those not living on the land (or real near it and not working it) and having other additional income (why should we subsidize the ag. part of a person who has cotton fields and oil that pay 100 times the avg. income?).

There is a cap on paying SS taxes and there should be on govt. subsidies. Yes it might make some get out of the biz and like Oldtimer points out, like the fake operations that are essentially private hunting preserves, but that is the very reason to do it.
 

Silver

Well-known member
The socialists to the north actually have a profitable dairy industry that if our trading partners have their way will soon be extinct. The system involves a marketing board with quotas, and has allowed dairy producers to be profitable for many years now. I sometimes wonder how we could apply this to the beef industry.
 

Tex

Well-known member
Silver said:
The socialists to the north actually have a profitable dairy industry that if our trading partners have their way will soon be extinct. The system involves a marketing board with quotas, and has allowed dairy producers to be profitable for many years now. I sometimes wonder how we could apply this to the beef industry.

There will be a quota on cattle but it will come from price signals controlled by the packers who have market power. Their margins will increase just as the price to retail has increased. The article I quoted said that much of the increase in the non rancher/farmer margin came from increases in the cost of labor. It kind of made me laugh as what in the heck do ranchers/farmers put into their side? They don't have any labor or is it just not countable?
 

Tex

Well-known member
Silver said:
The socialists to the north actually have a profitable dairy industry that if our trading partners have their way will soon be extinct. The system involves a marketing board with quotas, and has allowed dairy producers to be profitable for many years now. I sometimes wonder how we could apply this to the beef industry.

There will be a quota on cattle but it will come from price signals controlled by the packers who have market power. Their margins will increase just as the price to retail has increased. The article I quoted said that much of the increase in the non rancher/farmer margin came from increases in the cost of labor. It kind of made me laugh as what in the heck do ranchers/farmers put into their side? They don't have any labor or is it just not countable?
 
Top