Dairy Farmers Not Spared During Tough Economy
Published Date: 07-01-2009 09:50 PM CT
Good evening, I'm Dion Cheney.And I'm Nicole Winters.Thanks for joining us.While domestic consumption of dairy products is up about 2 percent nationwide, prices for producers are actually down.News 12's Ryan Gustafson tells us how the global economic decline is being felt down on the farm.A hundredweight of milk equals to about 12 gallons at the grocery store.While prices are currently low at the store, they're *really* low for producers... currently just below ten dollars a hundredweight.And they attribute the fall in prices both to increased production, and a decrease in global demand.Mike Schloesser says, "We had $20 milk a year and a half ago, and exports was a huge part of that. There was a lot of dried powder milk that was being exported out of this country. Now with the economic situation as it is, it's not just a tough situation here, it's throughout the world."Milk prices have now slipped to the point where producers are losing money in operations, as Schloesser's dairy requires around fifteen dollar milk to break even.And producers don't have the option of shutting down production like other industries.Schloesser says, "It's not like you can turn the switch off on the barn here and the cows quit milking for 30 days or whatever, that don't work. We have to continue to care for them."Commodities tend to be a more volatile market, and producers have been through it before - so even in the wake of a global recession, they're keeping their chin up.Schloesser says, "There's always hope. I wouldn't be in this business if I didn't have hope. We've seen highs and we've seen lows, and hopefully we can get through this one."In Le Center, Ryan Gustafson, News 12.
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