Tons of milk being spilled on the streets could be seen outside the European Headquarters in Brussel on October 5, 2009. This was the result of a demonstration milk farmers from various European countries held against falling milk prices. The farmers are mostly from Germany, France and Belgium. During the protest a milk farmer sprayed the police with milk directly from a cows udder.
While farmers are using milk to protest, some other people in UK are using cheese to have fun! For a good start of the day fill your bowl with milk mixed with healthy cereals.
“If the farmers aren’t making enough money from milk, they should produce something else instead.”
What they have now is all they have, many of these farms were passed down and this is all they know. Not to mention they have put a lot of money into building up their farms and they cant just throw that away. It would be very hard for them to produce something else and make a suitable product.
Exactly two comments worth reading; the rest of you are beneath contempt — or, at best, thoughtless and/or ignorant.
I hope things keep getting worse: you pigs have absolutely no comprehension of exactly how privileged you are, or how distorted your beliefs and value systems are; when something truly awful happens, it will be exactly what you have earned through years of systematic laziness and greed.
Alabama, I went to the university and get desk jobs, none of them pays me as it should. So, what is your point? I need an advice from you.
tha’s all right
not only this much i like it all
thank you very much……….
i think they are …
The Milk farmers are the ones getting milked, while the corporations they sell it to make the real money. again the small guy has to make the sacrifices so that corporate CEO’s can afford their private jets. we the consumer pay the tab.
and for the idiotic comments that farmers should change their job if they don’t like the pennies they get, what do you think will happen to food prices when all that’s left are 1 or 2 mega corporate milk farms?
which is probably what these corporations want anyway, squeeze the competition out of business so they can have it all and charge what they want.
@Jenna – Jan 12, 2010
>>”For those of you who are arguing about how much milk costs…but it doesn’t cost anything for the farmer if you don’t feed them grain.”
?..?..?
In reply to Jenna – who seems to have overloooked a few things – on costs:
? Compliance with regulations; registration & identification of stock; meeting environmental conditions;
? Vet bills; medication; routine maintainance (foot trimming; worming, disease testing, etc.);
? Insurance;
? Stock replacement; stud fees;
? Pasture management (testing grass nutritional quality; mowing; reseeding leys; fertilizing; weeding; pest-control; hay or silage making; ~ fuel & machinery to do all this);
? Supplying & maintaining water in fields;
? Feed & nutritional supplements (grass is not adequate in winter in many parts of the world); parlour rations; hay/silage;
? Bedding – Straw or shavings etc;
? Transport;
? Maintainance of capital stock; buildings & equiptment;
? Capital investment to keep up-to-date & competetive.
? Milk storage – refrigeration; Cleaning & sterilising of parlour equiptment;
? Electricity (industrial supply);
? Water (industrial supply);
? Waste & slurry – movement, storage & disposal;
? Book-keeping/accountancy services;
? Farm labour & stock-persons;
These are only some of the associated costs for a pasture based system, where the cows are able to eat grass for most of the year.
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The demonstation is about awareness raising, the majority of consumers are not aware of the crisis in dairying.
Unless we want to see the majority of dairying move to indoor, huge, industrialized units, feeding GM grains & soy, milking cows bred to produce 3 times as much milk as is natural, 3 times a day, shortening their lifespan to 3years, we need to wake up as consumers and demand healthy, sustainable produce, from smaller accountable producers.
We need added value in milk to allow smaller dairy farmers to survive – people will pay a premium for quality, herd or breed specific, local milk, certified as non-GM, grass fed.
Presently, unless you buy organic, you can assume your milk comes from cows, raised on GM feed, as this is the case for almost 90% of the indusrty.
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Globalisation & Capitalist economics encourage the exploitation of resources, contributing to the increasing industrialization of agriculture, driving increasing consolidation, domination & control of markets into the hands of a small number of very large and powerful corporations.
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Giving food aid can be very counter-productive; it may stop some people starving in the short term; but does nothing to address the underlying problem, and often does much to make it worse.
Providing food damages the country’s own farmers and agricultural system, depriving them of a market for their produce. It sustains the country’s population (frequently) at a level greater than the country can support leaving them dependant upon more aid & accruing unservicable debt: aid is often tied to expolitative agreements & conditions from (E.g.) the World Bank, giving preferential (and often exploitative) concessions to develped nations.
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I know i work everyday Im a farmer poulty and dairy the work is 7day a week and how ever many hours that are required even 24 .No days off no wk ends if people like myself dont do what we do where do you get your eggs, chicken, milk ,fruit and veg.?how much time and money would it take to do all this yourself and maybe you cant. show the farmer a little respect! Maybe they shouldnt have wasted the milk because there is hungry people out there but it is there milk if they dont get paid for it its none of your business they milked ,feed, cared for the cows they paid for all of this !electric is high, feed is high work is hard and vet is exspensive,not to leave out gas .there is to sides to this story and the farmers are hungry to so are there kids! what should they do ! maybe the companys should pay more so they can feed there kids and you get your food.Milk takes alot of hard work time and money just be glad ther are still farmers that do these hard jobs so your milk gets in the stores so when you want it there!you got to remember farmers are the roots of our country!
never criticize a farmer with your mouth full.
farmers work in all weathers,all hours.
farming is not a drudge job where anyone can do it properly.
a farmer has to balance a budget, maintain equipment, care for crops/cattle, deal with a mountain of red tape.
basically a farm is a business.
for me, it also a heritage of about 7 generations.
you need a good education.
farming is more than just milking cows and bouncing around on a red tractor.
and will you stop bitching about a waste of milk? its going into the soil and lowering the need of fetiliser later on.
all the slurry tanks there would only come to about 1.7 million liters of milk, ONE days intake for an average milk processes plant.
In the UK, I blame TESCO and their sister supermarkets for driving down prices and not encouraging QUALITY over quantity. If a farmer can cut corners he will, when the market is forcing him to. It was in the news a while back (not very heavily promoted, WHY?) that supermarkets and middle-men were fixing prices and denying the farmers a fair share. I don’t drink milk any more partly due to this, but I would buy organic if you do – the price is higher, and some of this at least finds its way to the farmer (although I’m still unhappy at the exploitation). Farmers are collectively a bit daft, though – what would happen if EVERY farmer said “FUCK IT, I’m not selling any more milk til the price is fair at x pence per litre and the middle-men contracted to a fixed % as well as the supermarkets”. This requires union action, at the highest level of the game. It hasn’t happened yet, why? Also why do farmers vote conservative, the fucking idiots? Can’t they see that said parties are the parties of big business, and not in a good way if the evidence on milk prices is that big business exploits farmers to the detriment of their mental health, physical health, and the cows’ health, too. The cows that make the milk that goes into your bodies. You milk consumers are ALL to blame unless you follow a better policy than demanding cheap milk from the supermarket without regard for animal welfare, farmer welfare and subsequent quality of produce issues. The supermarkets will listen to your spending habits, so tell them. Also milk is too relied on as a foodstuff along with cheese – very inefficient it is, in fact. I’m not a vegan nor even a vegetarian, but people need to get a clue about the supermarkets’ and friends’ game. It ain’t ethical, AT ALL. You are what you eat, and with milk, that makes you pretty damn sour.
I know a few milk farmers and i have worked at their farms to try it out, and i can tell you from real experience, it’s fucking hell. it’s about 10-12 workhours a day not to uncommon more then that, 7 days a week all year around. there is NO vaccation at all, no single day to relax on. at a daily basis you have about 1 hour break, thats it. workday starts around 5-6 in the morning and stops at 17-18 at night and is not uncommon to be even later. expenses a farmer has is massive, Tools, other equipment, animal food, maintenance, vetrinarian, electricity bills, employee’s payment, storage expences for food and produce, bug and rodent extermination (try run a farm without any mice and other bugs showing up, i dare you), rent and rights of the farm, farm vehicle’s and their fuel and maintenance, and this is not all of their expenses with totals in the millions on a yearly basis for a average size farm. Income is just about enoth to pay the expenses and the employees payment is below average income rate despite their inhumane workhours.
To you all who have 7 or less workhours a day with weekends and payed vacations, try out their work for a bit and see if you can manage after a few mounth.