Posted on 06/30/2002 1:26:47 AM PDT by sarcasm
WASHINGTON — Want milk? The government is trying to figure out what to do with $1 billion worth of nonfat-milk powder that it bought in the past three years to prop up the prices paid to dairy farmers.
That is the equivalent of about 1.3 billion gallons of skim milk, enough to supply the nation's consumption for 16 months. It would take 635,000 cows a year to make all that milk.
The bags of powder are kept in a series of privately owned, manmade caves near Kansas City, Mo., and other warehouses around the country. An additional 20 million to 25 million pounds arrive every week.
"They keep making it and we keep buying it," said Steve Gill, an Agriculture Department official.
Under a Depression-era system, the department is required to control supplies of butter, cheese and nonfat-milk powder to keep milk prices above a certain level and support dairy farmers' revenue.
The 1996 Freedom of Farm law, which was supposed to wean farmers from government support, ended the milk program in 1999. But Congress extended it temporarily and then made it permanent again in the farm bill President Bush signed into law last month.
Nonfat dry milk is what is left after food makers remove the fat from milk to make butter, ice cream and products for which demand has been booming.
Milk processors do not have to sell the milk powder to the government. They could break it down into protein products, such as casein, that food manufacturers use for products from energy bars to infant formulas.
Processors sell to the government for one simple reason: The government pays more for nonfat dry milk, about 90 cents a pound, than food makers pay for milk protein.
The Agriculture Department is trying to get rid of the powder. Storage costs are approaching $20 million a year, and the powder keeps coming; about 386 million pounds have been purchased since October.
Some of the powder is donated to domestic programs and overseas. Powder that is getting old — some has been stored three years — is sold for use in animal feed.
The department is selling some of its powder stockpile back to processors to manufacture casein and caseinate, products food makers are buying from overseas.
"It behooves the U.S. government to find out what to do with its inventories," Gill said.
The department could stop the stockpile of milk powder from growing by lowering the price it pays for nonfat dry milk.
But critics say the department would then have to raise the price it pays for butter, and risk acquiring a surplus of that, or else the prices paid to farmers could drop below the level set by law: $9.90 per hundred pounds.
Congress is considering legislation that would boost tariffs on imported milk protein, raising its cost to U.S. manufacturers.
Food-industry officials say the tariff would further discourage U.S. producers from making casein and other protein products instead of selling nonfat powder to the government.
Bet there are lots of goodies like this in that pork farm bill.
'The Government' needs to stay the f$%& out of 'The Market' As any typical economist will tell you!
Socialism: You have two cows; there is an election. The government takes one of your cows in taxes and gives it to your neighbor. He knows nothing about livestock, so his new cow dies.
Communism: You have two cows; there is a revolution. The government confiscates your cows and "collectivizes" them. Both cows soon die, but the government is able to get powdered milk -- on credit, of course -- from a democracy on the other side of the world.
Fascism: You have two cows; there is a coup d'etat. The new government confiscates your cows and sells you part of their milk for ration coupons.
Nazism: You have two cows; there is an assassination. The new government confiscates your cows and shoots you.
New Dealism: You have two cows; there is a government-caused depression. The government prints some new "money," buys your cows, shoots one, hires an unemployed man to milk the other, and then throws the milk away to help raise milk prices.
Democracy: You have two cows; there is an opinion poll. You appeal to the government to subsidize your milk for "the good of the country." The government enacts your program, raises taxes, buys your milk at inflated prices, and stores it in rented warehouses until it spoils or a communist government buys it below market and on credit.
Capitalism: You have two cows; there is freedom. You sell one and buy a bull.
I have no idea how old this is, but it contains an awful lot of wisdom -- wisdom our own government has either forgotten or consciously chosen not to heed.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
Atlanta - Seventy-five people in Wisconsin suffered severe diarrhea, fever and cramps after drinking unpasteurized milk.
The December outbreak was traced to an organic dairy farm with 36 cows in Sawyer County, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Because Wisconsin bans sales of unpasteurized milk to the public, the farm distributed the unpasteurized milk through a cow-leasing program in which people paid a fee for the milk.
Many people believe unpasteurized milk tastes better and has more nutritional value. But studies have found no proof of such claims, said Donita Croft, a CDC official assigned to the Wisconsin Division of Public Health.
We have to go out of our way to a Sams Club to buy it at just over $2 a gallon.
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