Posted on 08/20/2017 6:43:25 PM PDT by Theoria
A dairy farmer, Jean-Pierre Le Guelvout, once kept 66 cows at a thriving estate in southern Brittany. But falling milk prices, accumulating debts, depression and worries about his heath in middle age became too much to bear.
Just 46, Mr. Le Guelvout shot himself in the heart in a grove behind his house one cold December day last year. “It was a place that he loved, near the fields that he loved,” explained his sister Marie, who said she was “very close” to him but did not see his suicide coming.
The death of Ms. Le Guelvout’s brother was part of a quiet epidemic of suicide among French farmers with which stoical rural families, the authorities, public health officials and researchers are trying to grapple.
Farmers are particularly at risk, they all say, because of the nature of their work, which can be isolating, financially precarious and physically demanding.
For farmers who do not have children to help with the work and eventually take over, the burden is that much greater. Falling prices for milk and meat have also added to debts and stress in recent years.
Researchers and farming organizations agree that the problem has persisted for years, but while they have stepped up efforts to help farmers, the effectiveness of such measures and the toll from suicides remain difficult to quantify.
The most recent statistics, made public in 2016 by France’s public health institute, show that 985 farmers killed themselves from 2007 to 2011 — a suicide rate 22 percent higher than that of the general population.
Even that number of suicides, which increased over time, may be underestimated, say researchers, who add that they fear the problem is not going away, though they are still analyzing more recent data.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This has been happening in India too, and for a long while.
The March of The Robots continues unencumbered, unabated - for now.
Too many unmarried single male farmers???
Too many French women who move to the cities and don’t want to marry a farmer?
France should offer immigration to the Amish and Mennonites.
I’m surprised they don’t have subsidies and supply controls like we have in Canada for dairy, eggs, poultry. Milk prices rise here every year and supply is strictly regulated, so dairy farmers are very prosperous. Consumers are the losers: we pay 2 to 3 times what you do in the US depending on the product.
Is that expense also seen as a Value Added Tax?
Many have wanted to use the same method in the states.
Al Gore being but one of them.
There are no value added taxes on food in Canada , no subsidies on milk , eggs or chicken . In northern Ontario I’m currently paying $1.97 for a dozen eggs and $3.99 for 4 liters of milk . If you want a single liter of milk it’s more money , because of the packaging and transportation costs for a single liter . Farmers don’t set the retail price on anything , grocers do .
Milk prices in the USA are also too low for farmers to break even. Small to medium size dairy farms are dropping like flies.
Can a farmer set his wholesale price?
While prices vary, here in NC I just paid 59 cents for large eggs and $1.58 for a gallon of whole milk. It’s slightly higher this week.
In Ontario the Ontario Milk Marketing Board does that and it’s a wholesale price. But here are different classes of milk . The milk you and I drink is priced different , more, than the milk that goes to cheese , butter or other dairy products.
PA farm price on milk by tanker is up slightly at about $16 per hundred weight. It was recently as low as $12.50. It should be above $20.
Last March or April eggs were $2.79 and in one week they dropped to $1.97. Right now , this morning, grocers are charging $1.97 for a dozen large, 3.99 for 18 large. And they call it a special. You figure it out, I can’t.
Sadly, this is not surprising. Not when so many areas of American society seem to approve of and promote the idea of open disrespect and emotional dumping on white people, especially on white males. Unfair, unchristian and unproductive, because some of this group will give up before really getting started in life.
The schools are a big offender with this attitude. There are now universities holding classes discussing how to rid society of the scourge of so called “white supremacy and privilege”.
Most schools now manufacture and assemble victims, and little else more.
If what’s called white privilege (actually what’s left of a godly worldview) is extirpated, so will be the associated blessings. It’s an ultimately self dooming rebel movement.
Milk prices dropped drastically since the record highs of 2014 when they were around $25 per hundred weight.
I like to use another term for keepers of the classic “white” worldview: rednecks of all colors. There is a certain unsophisticated glory, as Jeff Foxworthy put it. Elitism is disdained. What has happened here is the rise of many little vain elites, under the lefty umbrella.
There might be less flexibility in the French system than elsewhere for people to move in and out of farming as conditions fluctuate.
Are you allowed to make a profit?
Butter prices are at an all time high and skyrocketing in France due to the milk shortage. It’s an allocation problem as powdered milk supplies in France are record high.
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