$7 Milk?

[jcgoldie]

52. I raise dairy goats...

You are correct the milk is delicious and tastes a lot better than cow's milk. We drink it raw without pasteurization. The problem from a competitive standpoint is that the laws are all stacked against the small scale producer. 75-100 years ago milk was a major health issue and many laws were passed to protect people from unclean dairy products. Now we have much better knowledge about how to keep things clean and technology for getting it cold faster etc and these outdated laws have been manipulated by large dairy corporations to make it effectively impossible to provide a small farm alternative to mass produced milk. They hamstring small business under the guise of health standards.

I can sell milk off of my farm, for example, but I cannot advertise it in any way nor can I take it off my farm to sell it at a farmers market nor can I bottle it. Customers have to hear about it through word of mouth... come to my farm ... and pour it in their own bottle. Obviously these restrictions make it very difficult to compete as a producer. Large dairies lobby state legislatures to strengthen such laws and increase the penalties to avoid having to compete with small family farms.

On the cost side. Livestock feed prices precede food price hikes by about 6 months. Thanks to last summer's drought and a decimated corn crop primarily, we have been paying $12 dollars for 50 lbs of grain that was $8 last year and by August hay prices had nearly doubled. Crappy grass hay goes for $8/ bale because of the shortage. I do not recall it ever going above $5 here in this area of southern Illinois. We've been paying these prices all year and people still are resistant to rising milk prices.