The Dairy industry is hurting right now. The Dairy industry is made up of Dairy Farmers. Dairy Farmers are real people. Real people that are living out their passion for working the land, providing a wonderful place to raise a family and supplying the public with great dairy products.
There are many things that are ‘broken’ in the dairy world … but there are also so many things that are not. Dairy farmers are a unique breed if you will:) There are so many variables and unknowns. Weather, prices, animal health, personal health, crop yields, politics, public opinion, etc.
Supply and demand is a primary reason for this…and currently there is an over abundance of milk in our state…in our country. Dairy consumption is down for a variety of reasons. The logical reasoning to reverse this is…move more milk! Right? All of us have people in our communities that struggle financially. If you don’t have money it’s hard to purchase quality food.
Do you have a local food bank in your area? Ask them if they could use milk for their people. There is work being done right now to ‘level out’ this Supply and Demand issue by working at getting milk into food banks. In the near future I hope to share with you a way that you can help contribute towards this effort.
A Personal Experience:
Our company buys and sells milk. I had a local farmer contact me and expressed his wish to buy milk from me and have it donated to the local church food pantry on their distribution day. Here is a hard working dairy farmer with financial burdens of his own choosing to pay retail for milk (it cost him at least 3 x more to buy that milk then he was getting paid for the milk he was producing) to donate to local families in his community that are in need.
People…this is who I want to be when I grow up. I picked up and delivered 50 gallons of whole milk to the food pantry for this farmer. Did 50 gallons move the needle on the Supply and Demand problem? Probably not. Did this selfless act make a statement? I sure hope so. I’m sure he is not ‘tooting his horn’ about this…it’s not the type of guy he is. Let this man inspire you. Do something for someone else. Be a good neighbor. Volunteer. ‘Toot someone else’s horn’. Buy some milk:)
Dance Party
Yeah so dairy sucks right now. And here’s what some folks are doing to ‘shake it up’! :)