Valley dairy industry in bad shape

Let me be the first to say I have no sympathy for these greedy dairyman!

They are partly responsible for driving up our land and home prices during the boom with their 1031 money. In addition they receive massive goverment subsidies and most of them are very wealthy because of it. Finally, they are horrible polluters of our air and water. I hope 100% of them go out of business and leave town!

Local Bloggers comments:

Comment by takingbets
2009-01-08 07:48:05
my husband talked to a local dairyman yesterday. He said in the 40 years he’s been in business he’s never seen anything like what’s happening now. His pricing for milk and cheese is the lowest he’s ever charged and yet the grocery stores are not passing the lower prices down to their customers. Business has virtually stopped, he is not able to move his products because the end users are not buying like they used to.

Ny Times.com:

FOWLER, Calif. — The long economic boom, fueled by easy credit that allowed people to spend money they did not have, led to a huge oversupply of cars, houses and shopping malls, as recent months have made clear. Now, add one more item to the list: an oversupply of cows.

And it turns out that shutting down the milk supply is not as easy as closing an automobile assembly line.

As a breakneck expansion in the global dairy industry turns to bust, Roger Van Groningen must deal with the consequences. In a warehouse that his company runs here, 8 to 20 trucks pull up every day to unload milk powder. Bags of the stuff — surplus that nobody will buy, at least not at a price the dairy industry regards as acceptable — are unloaded and stacked into towering rows that nearly fill the warehouse.

Mr. Van Groningen’s company does not own the surplus milk powder, but merely stores it for the new owners: the taxpayers of the United States. To date, the government has agreed to buy about $91 million worth of milk powder.

Dairy scum in a dispute:

The Borba cousins — Kern’s leading dairy luminaries — are suing each other over fallout from a $42 million-plus deal they made last year.

In brief, cousins George Jr. and James each seek roughly $3.5 million from the other and lob some nasty allegations along the way, court documents show. The dispute concerns a lease agreement for land used to grow feed.