It's Time to Take the Gloves Off
If you’re reading this and you’re still in the dairy business I count you as someone very special. There is no way for any of us at this end of the industry to fully understand what dairymen, their spouses and families must be going through and how they are handling the current situation that the dairy industry finds itself in.
Sure, it’s tight in the advertising and marketing world too. Just look at what is happening to our local papers and other media that is reliant upon the business community both in and out of agriculture for its very survival. If businesses are suffering then the media is suffering right along with them. But what is happening in dairy and the various complications, the Perfect Storm as it has been called, goes above and beyond anything the rest of us are experiencing.
To help prove my point, picture this. Last week I was heading home after a late appointment, I was dressed in white shirt, tie and suit. I was later glad I was dressed for success. I needed gas and I needed a gallon of milk; both of equal importance in my book.
I stopped at a local AM/PM Mini Mart and started to pump the fuel which, by the way, they raised 5 cents per gallon when I swiped my credit card instead of paying cash. Visa/Master Card compliance rules are supposed to prevent a retailer from charging more for credit versus cash. That should have been my first indication I wasn’t going to leave in a good mood. While the gas was pumping I walked in to buy milk. I located the milk and as I started to pull it from the cold storage the price tag of $5.99 begins hit me. “Is that for two gallons?” was my first thought.
I immediately put the milk back, but it didn’t stop there. I walked to the counter and asked why milk was being sold at $5.99 per gallon. Did they know what the dairyman was being paid for that gallon, I inquire? Did they know what they paid the distributor for that gallon of milk?
My straight forward manner, size and how I was dressed put the owner in a very uncomfortable position, which was my intention. The rest of the shoppers in the store at the time were also taken back a bit by my questions. Dairymen are barely getting 80 cents a gallon for that milk; you are buying it for around 2 dollars per gallon and are charging the consumers $5.99 per gallon. What gives?
What surprised me most was how angry I got and how quick I was to retaliate against the owner. I shouldn’t have been so angry but maybe that is what it is going to take to make the needed changes in the production, sales and distribution of dairy products. Not only was I angry, but I found myself literally furious over the attitude of the store owner, not only this one, but many others I visited that night.
You see, I didn’t stop with the one store. I went to 4 other places just to check out what milk was being sold for. It’s now 10:30 at night and I am going place to place to check prices. $5.69 per gallon, $4.99 per gallon, $5.39 per gallon, and finally 7-11, where the price was 2 gallons for $5.29. Now how does that happen? How does a chain, even a convenience store, justify charging keystone 100% mark up and more on a gallon of milk?
Market history proves that if the price were lower there would be a dramatic increase in consumption. $5.99 per gallon is not the way to promote greater milk consumption. $5.99 per gallon is not the way to help consumers understand that things are really desperate in the dairy industry. $9.00 for a 2 pound block of sharp cheddar cheese is of little or no help as well.
Yes, someone is making big bucks, but it isn’t the dairyman and if the dairy doesn’t make it, then the whole game changes.
I have heard of protests promoted where one group or another decides to stay home from work a day to help us all better understand the supposed impact on the entire system by that group not showing up. Well, let’s go a day, a week, a month without the American farmer and see what happens.
Let’s start tomorrow. “Let them all eat cake without milk,” should be our motto. But then they couldn’t, could they. That cake is there because of a farmer.
I was mad enough last Thursday to publicly say to each of those owners and workers that what they were doing was wrong. I went on to inform them that they needed to help us maintain the livelihood of some 400,000 people whose jobs are reliant on the survival of the dairy industry in California alone.
I am sure they thought I was some crazy man spouting off about something as silly as the price of milk. But it’s time for everyone, and I truly mean everyone, to stand up and start talking to the masses outside of dairy and agriculture. We need to have a serious talk with the other two sides of this equation – distribution and consumption.
We talk to each other and we commiserate as to the problems that the dairy industry is currently living through, but the message that needs to be said and heard is not amongst us. It needs to be said to and heard by the sellers and consumers of dairy products.
We have to take our message to an ever-growing, ever-changing and an ever-more-interested and informed consumer. Why haven’t I seen or heard the current conditions and recommended solutions being enunciated to the general public, other than by the news media.
I believe that consumers do care about price, especially now. They also take a dim view of those who are taking advantage of the current market conditions to line their own pockets. We need to make our case and take the opportunity that is ours to tell this story from every roof top, to every market, to every home in America.
We will have to be very news worthy. We will definitely have to break the consumer’s preoccupation. I am more and more convinced that we have to do some very drastic things in order to get done what needs doing to save American agriculture and especially the dairy industry.
NO, we don’t need a bail out plan, no we don’t need more federal subsidies, no we don’t need government at all. What we need to do first is get their attention. In this vein, therefore, I propose that we do the following:
Starting one week at a time, we need to withhold the products grown and produced by the American farmer from the markets. Stop sending in the products you grow and produce. Need a better price for your milk? Stop sending in milk. Need more water? Stop selling products to the market place. Need a fair playing field as far as fuel prices, water quality and air quality are concerned? Don’t plant more than your family can eat. Want to increase what you get for what you grow? Don’t sell it until the market responds with a fair price for the products grown or produced.
No tomatoes, no lettuce, no cheese, no wheat, no flour, no beans, no rice, no beef, no chicken, no pork, no butter, no fruit, and for sure no milk; no nothing until what needs to be heard is heard and what needs to be done gets done. They want to play games; we have a whole new game for them to get their small brains around.
We’re not asking for the world. We’re not expecting easy street; but if the American farmer/producer is going to take all the risk, then he or she is entitled to not only break even, but to make a profit and to do so without mortgaging the farm. This is not rocket science. This is not complicated. When we get what we need, you get what you need. End of story.
It’s time we all took the gloves off. Someone is going to get bloody by this upcoming battle but it isn’t just going to be a farmer. Try living a week without a farmer and see if what we propose makes sense to you. I have a gut feeling that at the end of the first day we would be getting some people’s attention, and by Tuesday of the first week the phone would begin ringing.
It will work. It will have the desired effect. A little civil disobedience is long over due. The movie Gandhi is required viewing for this week too. Take some notes, set your own house in order, then roll up your sleeves and let’s start making some real changes.
After all, if they allow the American dairy industry to dry up and blow away, are they going to get their milk and cheese from China? See if there is an environmentalist who might have a problem with that one. Ok then, Mexico, Central America, South America. Ya, sure, no problem.
Wake up America. Wake up dairy industry; tell this story. Give them these options. They will thank their lucky stars to pay $5.99 per gallon for a product that is as good and safe as we currently produce here in this country and they will mandate that the dairyman gets his or her fair share in the process.
It’s the consumer’s choice. American Grown or China Grown. Take that message to the market. But get on with it.
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