Cancéropôle Lyon Rhône-Alpes

Terry Etherton

The latest American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Marketbasket Survey was released in July, 2007. The informal survey shows the total cost of 16 basic grocery items in the second quarter of 2007 was $42.95, up about 4 percent or $1.61 from the first quarter of 2007. A total of 82 volunteer shoppers in 32 states participated in the latest survey, conducted during May. Of the 16 items surveyed, 14 increased, one decreased and one stayed the same in average price compared to the 2007 first-quarter survey. Compared to one year ago, the overall cost for the marketbasket items showed an increase of about 8 percent. Regular whole milk showed the largest quarter-to-quarter price increase, up 34 cents to $3.46 per gallon.

As retail grocery prices have gradually increased, the share of the average food dollar that America’s farm and ranch families receive continues to decrease. “In the mid-1970s, farmers received about one-third of consumer retail food expenditures on average. That figure has decreased steadily over time and is now just 22 percent according to Agriculture Department statistics,” AFBF Economist Jim Sartwelle said. AFBF, the nation’s largest general farm organization, conducts its informal quarterly marketbasket survey as a tool to reflect retail food price trends. According to USDA statistics, Americans spend just under 10 percent of their disposable income on food annually, the lowest average of any country in the world.

Milk Price Trends

The most recent Marketbasket Survey has begun to track the prices of conventional milk, rbST-free milk, and organic milk.

No surprises here - rbST-free and organic cost a whole lot more! More of the old “smoke and mirrors” marketing campaign of charging a whole lot more money for nothing. As readers of my Blog know there are no compositional differences within a fat category among conventional, rbST-free and organic milks.

For the second quarter of 2007, shoppers found the average price for a half-gallon of regular whole milk to be $2.22. The average price for one gallon of regular whole milk was $3.46. Comparing per-quart prices, the retail price for whole milk sold in gallon containers was 28 percent lower compared to half-gallon containers, a typical volume discount long employed by retailers.

The average price for a half-gallon of rBST-free milk was $3.01, 36 percent higher than a half-gallon of regular milk. The average price for a half-gallon of organic milk was $3.65, 64 percent higher than a half-gallon of regular milk.

These data agree with my own observations. I was in Minneapolis, MN the week of July 22, 2007 and did an informal survey of milk prices in several different grocery store chains. Interestingly, the differential between conventional and rbST-free was the same for the different chains - the rbST-free cost $1 a gallon more compared to conventional milk! Wonder how these stores got the same markup? That is fodder for another blog.

More Smoke and Mirrors

As readers of my Blog appreciate, attempts to differentiate food based on technologies and management practices used in production when no differences exist, is misleading and creates confusion for consumers. In the rbST-free milk battle, rbST-free milk price is much higher yet farmers get, at best, pennies on the dollars. Net result? The folks “upstream” from the farmer, i.e., processors and retailers, are making a whole LOT of money in this deal! I will write more about this in the future.

To illustrate the dysfunction in the dairy industry a recent “proposal” was shared with me from the Mountain Area Council of Dairy Farmer of America (DFA). DFA is the nation’s largest producer-owned dairy marketing cooperative and food company. DFA markets more than 61.7 billion pounds of milk (total U.S. production is over 180 billion pounds) collected from over 19,100 dairy producers. The proverbial “800 pound” gorilla in the dairy cooperative world!

According to a copy of a letter I received written by Les Hardesty, Chairman, and Gregory Yando, Chief Operating Officer of the Mountain Area Council of DFA, the Mountain Area Council proposes to pay a premium of 50 cents/hundredweight of milk to farmers who don’t use rbST. This premium is being offered even though processors/retailers in that region of the country are apparently only willing to pay 35 cents/hundredweight more for rbST-free milk!!

The story shared with me gets even more bizarre. Since the processors/retailers are refusing to pay the differential between 50 cents and 35 cents (i.e., 15 cents/hundredweight) for rbST-free milk, the Mountain Area Council needs to cash flow the premium they are supposedly proposing. The working idea is that producers who use rbST will be charged an additional 15 cents/hundredweight for their milk…with the proceeds going to cash flow the premium for non-users. What a deal! Not a great way to build goodwill among dairy producers who use one of the best and safest animal biotechnologies approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It will be interesting to track this story to see what actually plays out.

A key take-home message is that in the current $20 milk market, a fair premium for NOT using rbST is about $1.47! Thus, the 50 cent premium is far short of fairly and fully compensating producers to give up using rbST. Not a surprise given that a key part of this “stealing your milk money” marketing campaign is to financially exploit dairy farmers…helps grow the margin at retail.

My encouragement is that dairy producers of America who care about maintaining their choice of using technologies and farming practices they deem appropriate step up to the plate and defend their businesses. If not, we will continue to witness more assaults on the use of other biotechnologies, technologies and farming practices by America’s farmers.

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Dennis Halladay
Hoard’s West
Published - March 2007

This is an informative article about the ongoing rbST public debate. As you will see, Mr. Halladay is outraged about a decision made by a dairy cooperative in California (CDI) to NOT accept milk from cloned cows or rbST-supplemented cows. I, too, am appalled at the decision that was made by CDI.

This way to read the article.

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Terry Etherton

The latest American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Marketbasket Survey was released in July, 2007. The informal survey shows the total cost of 16 basic grocery items in the second quarter of 2007 was $42.95, up about 4 percent or $1.61 from the first quarter of 2007. A total of 82 volunteer shoppers in 32 states participated in the latest survey, conducted during May. Of the 16 items surveyed, 14 increased, one decreased and one stayed the same in average price compared to the 2007 first-quarter survey. Compared to one year ago, the overall cost for the marketbasket items showed an increase of about 8 percent. Regular whole milk showed the largest quarter-to-quarter price increase, up 34 cents to $3.46 per gallon.

As retail grocery prices have gradually increased, the share of the average food dollar that America’s farm and ranch families receive continues to decrease. “In the mid-1970s, farmers received about one-third of consumer retail food expenditures on average. That figure has decreased steadily over time and is now just 22 percent according to Agriculture Department statistics,” AFBF Economist Jim Sartwelle said. AFBF, the nation’s largest general farm organization, conducts its informal quarterly marketbasket survey as a tool to reflect retail food price trends. According to USDA statistics, Americans spend just under 10 percent of their disposable income on food annually, the lowest average of any country in the world.

Milk Price Trends

The most recent Marketbasket Survey has begun to track the prices of conventional milk, rbST-free milk, and organic milk.

No surprises here - rbST-free and organic cost a whole lot more! More of the old “smoke and mirrors” marketing campaign of charging a whole lot more money for nothing. As readers of my Blog know there are no compositional differences within a fat category among conventional, rbST-free and organic milks.

For the second quarter of 2007, shoppers found the average price for a half-gallon of regular whole milk to be $2.22. The average price for one gallon of regular whole milk was $3.46. Comparing per-quart prices, the retail price for whole milk sold in gallon containers was 28 percent lower compared to half-gallon containers, a typical volume discount long employed by retailers.

The average price for a half-gallon of rBST-free milk was $3.01, 36 percent higher than a half-gallon of regular milk. The average price for a half-gallon of organic milk was $3.65, 64 percent higher than a half-gallon of regular milk.

These data agree with my own observations. I was in Minneapolis, MN the week of July 22, 2007 and did an informal survey of milk prices in several different grocery store chains. Interestingly, the differential between conventional and rbST-free was the same for the different chains - the rbST-free cost $1 a gallon more compared to conventional milk! Wonder how these stores got the same markup? That is fodder for another blog.

More Smoke and Mirrors

As readers of my Blog appreciate, attempts to differentiate food based on technologies and management practices used in production when no differences exist, is misleading and creates confusion for consumers. In the rbST-free milk battle, rbST-free milk price is much higher yet farmers get, at best, pennies on the dollars. Net result? The folks “upstream” from the farmer, i.e., processors and retailers, are making a whole LOT of money in this deal! I will write more about this in the future.

To illustrate the dysfunction in the dairy industry a recent “proposal” was shared with me from the Mountain Area Council of Dairy Farmer of America (DFA). DFA is the nation’s largest producer-owned dairy marketing cooperative and food company. DFA markets more than 61.7 billion pounds of milk (total U.S. production is over 180 billion pounds) collected from over 19,100 dairy producers. The proverbial “800 pound” gorilla in the dairy cooperative world!

According to a copy of a letter I received written by Les Hardesty, Chairman, and Gregory Yando, Chief Operating Officer of the Mountain Area Council of DFA, the Mountain Area Council proposes to pay a premium of 50 cents/hundredweight of milk to farmers who don’t use rbST. This premium is being offered even though processors/retailers in that region of the country are apparently only willing to pay 35 cents/hundredweight more for rbST-free milk!!

The story shared with me gets even more bizarre. Since the processors/retailers are refusing to pay the differential between 50 cents and 35 cents (i.e., 15 cents/hundredweight) for rbST-free milk, the Mountain Area Council needs to cash flow the premium they are supposedly proposing. The working idea is that producers who use rbST will be charged an additional 15 cents/hundredweight for their milk…with the proceeds going to cash flow the premium for non-users. What a deal! Not a great way to build goodwill among dairy producers who use one of the best and safest animal biotechnologies approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It will be interesting to track this story to see what actually plays out.

A key take-home message is that in the current $20 milk market, a fair premium for NOT using rbST is about $1.47! Thus, the 50 cent premium is far short of fairly and fully compensating producers to give up using rbST. Not a surprise given that a key part of this “stealing your milk money” marketing campaign is to financially exploit dairy farmers…helps grow the margin at retail.

My encouragement is that dairy producers of America who care about maintaining their choice of using technologies and farming practices they deem appropriate step up to the plate and defend their businesses. If not, we will continue to witness more assaults on the use of other biotechnologies, technologies and farming practices by America’s farmers.

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Comments are closed.

David and Dawn Windle
Wisconsin Dairy Producers
Published in Hoard’s Dairyman (August 25, 2007)

This is in response to all of those who have written in about bST. My husband and I just chuckle when we read what people have to say.

If you know anything about dairying, there are plenty of options to gaining more milk. If you are able to look on the inside cover of the January 19 issue, you will see that Mycogen Seeds are advertising a gain of 4.8 pounds of milk with their seed. Why not complain about that? If you are to look under the Young Dairymen’s page, they are talking about cow comfort…another TOOL to gain milk. Anything that you do on the farm in everyday routine is a TOOL.

If we want want to make less milk, we should not be allowed to use TMRs, long-day lighting, sand bedding, comfort stalls, top-quality feeds, proven A.I. sires, A.I. services, ration balancing, flushing of cows (Embryo Transfer), milking 3x per day, fertilizing fields, and so on. I am sure there are some more I missed. These are all TOOLS of farming. These all contribute to more milk.

People say cows get burned out on bST. If it used correctly and you feed your cows accordingly, your cows will live as long as you want them to. We have cows that are 8, 9, 10, and 11 years old. And, oh my gosh, they are bST! Do you really think that, when there was a shortage of bST, the farmers who use it were not getting enough of it? Think again.

If we can milk 47 cows and make a living and not have to kill ourselves at it, and it works for you, I say go for it, use bST. Use all the other TOOLS of farming, also. That is…unless you want to sit back and blame everyone else for you not being able to make a living.

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The following podcast is a roundtable discussion about rBST with Dr. Terry Etherton and dairy producers Dan Brandt and Tom Krall.

Listen | subscribe

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David and Dawn Windle
Wisconsin Dairy Producers
Published in Hoard’s Dairyman (August 25, 2007)

This is in response toall of those who have written in about bST. My husband and I just chuckle when we read what people have to say.

If you know anything about dairying, there are plenty of options to gaining more milk. If you are able to look on the inside cover of the January 19 issue, you will see that Mycogen Seeds are advertising a gain of 4.8 pounds of milk with their seed. Why not complain about that? If you are to look under the Young Dairymen’s page, they are talking about cow comfort…another TOOL to gain milk. Anything that you do on the farm in everyday routine is a TOOL.

If we want want to make less milk, we should not be allowed to use TMRs, long-day lighting, sand bedding, comfort stalls, top-quality feeds, proven A.I. sires, A.I. services, ration balancing, flushing of cows (Embryo Transfer), milking 3x per day, fertilizing fields, and so on. I am sure there are some more I missed. These are all TOOLS of farming. These all contribute to more milk.

People say cows get burned out on bST. If it used correctly and you feed your cows accordingly, your cows will live as long as you want them to. We have cows that are 8, 9, 10, and 11 years old. And, oh my gosh, they are bST! Do you really think that, when there was a shortage of bST, the farmers who use it were not getting enough of it? Think again.

If we can milk 47 cows and make a living and not have to kill ourselves at it, and it works for you, I say go for it, use bST. Use all the other TOOLS of farming, also. That is…unless you want to sit back and blame everyone else for you not being able to make a living.

Permalink

Comments are closed.

The following podcast is a roundtable discussion about rBST with Dr. Terry Etherton and dairy producers Dan Brandt and Tom Krall.

Listen | subscribe

Permalink

Comments are closed.

David and Dawn Windle
Wisconsin Dairy Producers
Published in Hoard’s Dairyman (August 25, 2007)

This is in response to all of those who have written in about bST. My husband and I just chuckle when we read what people have to say.

If you know anything about dairying, there are plenty of options to gaining more milk. If you are able to look on the inside cover of the January 19 issue, you will see that Mycogen Seeds are advertising a gain of 4.8 pounds of milk with their seed. Why not complain about that? If you are to look under the Young Dairymen’s page, they are talking about cow comfort…another TOOL to gain milk. Anything that you do on the farm in everyday routine is a TOOL.

If we want want to make less milk, we should not be allowed to use TMRs, long-day lighting, sand bedding, comfort stalls, top-quality feeds, proven A.I. sires, A.I. services, ration balancing, flushing of cows (Embryo Transfer), milking 3x per day, fertilizing fields, and so on. I am sure there are some more I missed. These are all TOOLS of farming. These all contribute to more milk.

People say cows get burned out on bST. If it used correctly and you feed your cows accordingly, your cows will live as long as you want them to. We have cows that are 8, 9, 10, and 11 years old. And, oh my gosh, they are bST! Do you really think that, when there was a shortage of bST, the farmers who use it were not getting enough of it? Think again.

If we can milk 47 cows and make a living and not have to kill ourselves at it, and it works for you, I say go for it, use bST. Use all the other TOOLS of farming, also. That is…unless you want to sit back and blame everyone else for you not being able to make a living.

Permalink

Comments are closed.

The following podcast is a roundtable discussion about rBST with Dr. Terry Etherton and dairy producers Dan Brandt and Tom Krall.

Listen | subscribe

Permalink

Comments are closed.

Troy L. Ott, Ph.D., PAS
Associate Professor of Reproductive Biology
Department of Dairy and Animal Science
The Pennsylvania State University

Hold on to your wallets ladies and gentlemen. A number of large dairy processors are getting ready to pull the old “smoke-and-mirrors” trick that will result in you paying more for your milk while at the same time hurting the environment. “How could this be?” you say. Here’s the scam: retailers will sell “rbST-free” milk to you for a premium of about 40 cents to $2.20 per gallon. As discussed in Terry Etherton’s Blog, the milk is not different in composition from other milk, but you will have a vague feeling that it is somehow better. Never mind that rbST has been determined by the FDA to be a safe and effective way to increase milk production by 10-15%. Never mind that it has been shown to be an effective tool to increase the efficiency of dairying. Never mind that it has been approved for use for over 10 years without any documented problems. NONE!

That’s the smoke, now what about the mirrors? Well, it doesn’t take a rocket (or animal) scientist to figure out that if you take away a safe and effective tool to increase milk production by 10-15%, farmers will need to increase cow numbers to make up for the lost milk production. These cows will use more resources (grain, forage, water) and generate more waste (manure, odor, methane) and take up more space. This will increase the environmental impact of dairying in your communities. In addition, because productivity and efficiency will be reduced on many of our nations’ dairies, they will be less profitable. “What’s wrong with that, I don’t like big corporate farms.” you say. Here’s what’s wrong with that. When dairy processors force our dairies to give up using rbST, those dairies will experience a cash flow problem. What do you do when that happens at your home? You cut corners on spending. On a dairy, things like facility modernization, herd health vaccinations, cow comfort upgrades could be delayed or scrapped. Furthermore, employees’ wages will suffer as dairies scramble to reduce costs to stay in business. The dairies, their employees and the cows all suffer. Without this effective tool to increase efficiency, smaller dairies will be squeezed to either get larger or get out of the business.

Sadly, there is another big cost. One that you will never see, but believe me you will feel it in your pocketbook. That cost will be the technologies and improvements in dairying that will never see the light of day. This is because the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry will have learned an important lesson. That it does not matter if you do things the right way and provide safe effective technologies to animal agriculture. Some marketing “guru” with his smoke machine will come up with a way to conjure up another niche in the market. He’ll let anti-technology fanatics fan the flames with unsubstantiated claims of health or safety, and convince you to pay more for less. Bottom line: The true environmentalists among us should see this scam for what it really is. Safe, effective technologies like bST that increase the efficiency and profitability of dairying benefit all of us, the cows, and the environment.

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