When it comes to the American dairy farmer, actions — and dollar bills — speak louder than words
- Senator Schumer lauded for thinking outside the box

What could be worse than American dependence on foreign oil? How about American dependence on foreign food? Think it can't happen? Think again.

Indeed, today's typical consumer forgets that food grows on farms, not at supermarkets or convenience stores, and considers producing food for the marketplace to be a piece of whipped cream cake. But the reality is that we, as a nation, need to stop taking our farmers for granted before it is too late. Rather than bite the hard-working hands that feed us, we need to appreciate and bolster them, remembering that actions — and dollar bills — speak louder than words.

On the topic of whipped cream, there's nothing fabricated about the increasingly dire struggle of American dairy farmers, many of whom labor 16+ hours, 365 days a year. USDA statistics, pegging the cost of producing a gallon of milk at more than twice what New York State farmers get paid for it, tell the cold, hard truth.

Yes, every penny counts on a dairy farm. But much more was warranted than the temporary, drop-in-the-bucket increase in the milk support price recently approved by Congress. On the other hand, hats off to New York Senator Charles Schumer for thinking outside the box, and requesting an investigation into why retail milk prices have remained high, despite the rock bottom figures farmers have been receiving.

Provided prompt action is taken based on the inquiry, dairy producers should benefit over the long and short term. But how many will disappear before their bigger milk checks make it to the bank?

The spread between the wholesale price — what producers/growers receive — versus what consumers pay at the store checkout counter, presents a challenge to all of agriculture. But in the dairy industry, where milk processors have consolidated and relatively few farms merchandise milk, cheese, ice cream, etc., directly to consumers, the wholesale/retail spread has widened with time and become notably unresponsive to producer price declines.

When retail dairy prices have dropped, it has usually been months after the fact on the wholesale side and been insufficient to boot. But in sharp contrast, retail dairy prices have shot up overnight, whenever milk prices at the farm have risen.

In an ideal, free market setting, an oversupply causes wholesale, then retail, prices to drop equivalently. Lower retail prices stimulate an increased demand, surplus sells off, and the prices paid to farmers stabilize.

Retail prices remaining sticky to the upside disable the supply/demand mechanism. In the dairy department, that has meant excess milk and milk by-products, but supermarket prices too high to encourage shoppers to buy enough volume to eliminate the excess.

One factor underlying retail milk price stickiness is the nature of the fluid itself. While apples, for example, can be stored for months under controlled conditions — then marketed when the grower can get the best price — milk in farm bulk tanks must be shipped to processors every day or two. Otherwise it becomes unfit for human consumption.

Another contributing factor is that dairy farmers — with all they can do to get the hay baled, the back 40 planted, the cattle fed/milked, etc. — don't have the time, energy, or resources to oversee how much profit processors, truckers, and supermarkets are pocketing along the dairy supply chain. Nor can dairy farmers ride herd on milk cooperative executives who claim the farmers are being paid as much as possible, but who rake in eye-popping salaries at their member producers' expense.

Dairy farmers pump an estimated $2.70 into their local economies for every dollar they spend. Conversely, when dairy farmers curtail expenditures, or go out of business altogether, the opposite holds true. Across the US, many regional economies thus thrive or dive, depending on the fiscal well-being of their dairy producers. But fewer in number, dairy farmers have become less influential politically. In contrast, corporations that buy raw milk and convert it into costly commodities have grown wealthier and more powerful.

Yes, Senator Schumer's action was overdue. But it was nevertheless refreshing to see a lawmaker going to bat for dairy farmers, bringing Big Business — aka "the middle man" — under the microscope. Were every lawmaker to spend a week working on a dairy farm, witnessing what's really involved in producing a gallon of milk, there's no telling what other insightful, pro-dairy measures might be implemented. One such entry for the to-do list is a makeover of the ultra-complex milk pricing system, which, for decades, has also promoted the dairy farmers' plight.

Stay tuned for the sure-to-astound findings of the Department of Justice/Federal Trade Commission inquiry. But I'd hope the meat, poultry, pork, and egg industries would likewise be demystified. Fat margins along the supply chain in all of these, coupled with inefficiencies in the ongoing use of corn as fuel, rather than feedstuffs, will otherwise continue inflating protein prices, hampering economic recovery, promoting obesity, and thus taking a serious toll on the health of the American people.

Susan Kross, DVM, bred and raised show quality Registered Holstein cattle at her family's dairy-poultry farm on the Ulster- Sullivan County border. A former valedictorian of the Fallsburg Central School, "cum laude" graduate of Yale University, and graduate with distinction from the NYS College of Veterinary Medicine [Cornell], she operated a solo, large animal veterinary practice for nearly 20 years. Kross is currently an independent journalist and human nutrition-health-fitness consultant.