Price of milk

[Ickisrulz]

Did the price of milk go down everywhere? We're now paying $1.50 per gallon. A few weeks ago it was $1.19.

[too many things]

well trump took some of the support prices off so now the farmers cant get the extra money and have to sell at market price.
will see cheese drop too but much later as they can use the old milk. till farmers are gone .

[Ickisrulz]

well trump took some of the support prices off so now the farmers cant get the extra money and have to sell at market price.
will see cheese drop too but much later as they can use the old milk. till farmers are gone .

What is a "support price?"

[NyFirefighter357]

We pay anywhere between $3.50 & $5 gallon here.

[tinsnips]

We pay about $6.oo per gallon here.

[Tom W.]

I've seen from $2.50 in one store in Columbus to almost $6 in a Publix store in Phenix City....

[Cheeto303]

I go out and milk a goat.

[merlin101]

What is a "support price?"

A federal subsidy, farmers have been betting milk subsidies for decades.

[merlin101]

will see cheese drop too but much later as they can use the old milk. till farmers are gone .
Some may fall by the wayside but eventually the supply will met the demand WITHOUT government intervention! The gvmt shouldn't pick winners or loses nor set prices.

[sav300]

$1.99 per litre here.

[lead-1]

Depending on the store you visit it's going anywhere from $1.29 to $3.69 a gallon in this area.

[Bookworm]

The U.S.government supported milk prices for decades, since at least the 1930's, by actually purchasing milk at a set 'floor' price.
That milk was given out, often in the form of "government cheese", as a form of welfare. These handouts of basics - milk, cheese, rice, flour, cooking oil - went on into at least the late 1960s. I can remember seeing the blocks of cheese, labeled " U.S.government - not for sale ". If one wanted the handouts, one went to a certain place on a certain day of the month and got it.
Few people went to get it, unless they absolutely had no other choice. There was a stigma attached to getting handouts, it meant you weren't capable of taking care of yourself and your family.

My, how times have changed.

[nekshot]

I used to have dairy till I had a serious fall. The govt needs to stay out of milk!! Let supply and demand determine the price. The govts involvement was the dems wanting cheap food for their food programs and I still get frosted about it even though I am out of dairy cows. I now milk some goats!!

[DocSavage]

Store brand whole milk is 2.59 to 2.99 around here. Bought milk at a stop and rob
$4.00 for a gallon won't make that mistake again. IIRC the AG here fined one of the local store chains for selling milk at a lower price than the other regional chains. Australia $8.00 a gallon YIKES.

[Love Life]

I tried milking soybeans, but didn’t get anything.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[WebMonkey]

meat and milk goats here.
havent had to buy milk in awhile.
:)
2.50 a gallon in stores here though

[marlin39a]

I've been paying $1.99 a gallon for awhile.

[GhostHawk]

The government sets prices to keep end prices low for consumers.

Farmers want nothing more than the government to get out of their business and leave them alone.

Sadly it does not happen much that way.

You think milk is bad, look into sugar.

The last time there was a change in the whole milk support price half the dairy farmers in the USA sold out. Be careful what you ask for, you may get it and not like it.

[jdfoxinc]

But steaks were cheap for a short time.

[rockrat]

I remember the cheese. Fellow that worked for Granddad a few days of the week would get some. He said most people would get the cheese and just toss it in the trash, saying it was junk. He brought a block that someone was tossing. Granddad made some pimento cheese from it. It was good. We finished the whole 5 lbs. Just as good as most store bought cheese.

[shdwlkr]

I can get what they call whole milk for $1.87 a gallon been that price for a long time

[BrassMagnet]

The U.S.government supported milk prices for decades, since at least the 1930's, by actually purchasing milk at a set 'floor' price.
That milk was given out, often in the form of "government cheese", as a form of welfare. These handouts of basics - milk, cheese, rice, flour, cooking oil - went on into at least the late 1960s. I can remember seeing the blocks of cheese, labeled " U.S.government - not for sale ". If one wanted the handouts, one went to a certain place on a certain day of the month and got it.
Few people went to get it, unless they absolutely had no other choice. There was a stigma attached to getting handouts, it meant you weren't capable of taking care of yourself and your family.

My, how times have changed.

Colorado decided to give out the cheese in the mid to late seventies. I got a block of cheese the first month they gave it away. All I needed was a Colorado Drivers License. I was home on leave then.
The next month you had to be on welfare to get it.

[BrassMagnet]

The government sets prices to keep end prices low for consumers.

Farmers want nothing more than the government to get out of their business and leave them alone.

Sadly it does not happen much that way.

You think milk is bad, look into sugar.

The last time there was a change in the whole milk support price half the dairy farmers in the USA sold out. Be careful what you ask for, you may get it and not like it.

Colorado law says only the Dairyman's Assn can sell milk for human consumption.
Last I heard, about $10,000/cow allows you to sell to them for $0.50/gal and they can decide you got the milk in their truck dirty and fine you thousands and thousands of dollars.
What a racket!
Gov't interference in any market destroys it.

[fatelk]

I grew up on a dairy. The net result of milk subsidies is cheaper milk in the store. As I recall, the subsidies would kick in when the price of milk fell below a certain point. Taxpayer money meant the producers could stay in business selling milk below the cost of production.

Dairy farming was always a roller-coaster ride. There would be a shortage of milk so prices would rise and you made good money. When you're making a good profit you expand your production, add more cows to the herd. Everyone does, then pretty soon there's a glut of milk on the market.

Prices fall, herds are culled. At one point I remember the government was buying whole herds and paying the farmers to slaughter them. Many farmers went bankrupt. After a while production fell to where there was a shortage again, and the whole cycle started over.

I also recall my dad saying that the subsidies tend to help the big corporate farms more than the small farmers. It's sad: by and large the family farm is long dead. Big business runs agriculture nowadays.

[shdwlkr]

fatelk
I grew up working on a neighbors farm, dad was the Ag teacher in school. We had 65 milkers and never went larger, farm is gone now as are most all the farms I knew as a kid even the potato farms are gone, muck land I knew as a kid is nothing to even think about now as the fools who worked the ground didn't understand that black ground was that way because of all the organic material that was put back in the soil every fall when crops were done. Dairy farming is a joke today herds are in the 2000 milkers size to make any money at all. The government has no clue how to manage farms never has. Fluid milk at one point in time the price the farmer got paid was to a certain extent based on the amount of butter fat in the milk, on the farm I worked I figured out how to increase our butter fat so the boss got more for his milk. I can date myself on when I was on the farm when I started we had milk cans then forced to go to bulk tank and deal with a shipper to pick up our milk. I can even remember dumping our milk when the price was so low it wasn't worth it to ship so we dumped thousands of gallons of milk for a few days before the dairy that was buying our milk and a lot of other farmers agreed on a better price for our milk. That dairy is still processing milk in the area and they make powdered milk, cottage cheese and I think ice cream and milk notice the order of products, there is a reason for that and it is all to do with what that plant can get paid to produce. Oh well things may never get back to where they were once then again if things go south far enough we might see the rise of small farms that meet the needs of the their owners

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Gee, I thought the low prices was a local thing...price wars with a New ALDI store next to Walmart. Last summer it was as low as $1.29 a gallon, now it's at $1.89 a gallon. Most other Grocers and convienence stores are still about $3 to $3.50 a gallon.

The weird thing was, at ALDIs and Walmart the half gallon jugs cost more money that the gallon jug.

[country gent]

The subsides are thru the whole farming industry now, Corn, Soybeans, Wheat, hogs chickens and eggs, set aside grounds, Its thru the whole industry the ones who really make out are the big farms. Its not just the milk production.

[daengmei]

Walmart yesterday .79c a gal. I almost had to fight to get to the fridge, shoppers with carts in the way calling whoever about milk...how many you want.... The register lady told me some kind of local price competition. She said some already left with carts full and she saw a few return for more. A new Aldi opening in the same block too?

[shooterg]

farm.ewg.org Check out how much the large farmers near you get. I grew up on a small family farm(250 acres), maybe 100 Black Angus, 4 milk cows, 1100 chickens, 40-50 hogs at the most. We grew corn,wheat - used a David Bradley hammer mill to process some into feed.Never got a subsidy. Gramps gave up the tobacco allotment that could've been profitable "cause he was a Baptist preacher and against smoking.
Neighbor farms thousands of acres, has millions in equipment, has collected over $1,000,000 in "welfare" from the government. He uses those $$ to buy out smaller bits of land in the area (usually with homes that become rental property).
Heck of a system we got.
The wife and I bought 80 acres from the estate(all we could afford) - to keep it for the grandboy. Hope he has some dirt farmer in his blood !

[STI4ME]

Just shy of $4/gal. here in Maine.

[Tom W.]

I remember when the Aldi store opened in Columbus. Milk was going for .75 a gallon, limit of six each visit.

[rustypot]

Paid 1.89 this week and stores have been having cheese on sale a lot here lately

[starmac]

Anybody have a link to these subsidies that were cut??

[ofitg]

Did the price of milk go down everywhere? We're now paying $1.50 per gallon. A few weeks ago it was $1.19.

Today we paid $2.39 at a Safeway store in Arizona.

[Echo]

I've been paying $1.99 a gallon for awhile.
Same here in Tucson...

[Three44s]

The subsides are thru the whole farming industry now, Corn, Soybeans, Wheat, hogs chickens and eggs, set aside grounds, Its thru the whole industry the ones who really make out are the big farms. Its not just the milk production.

I will not argue that ag subsidies are wrong but it is not correct that all of ag is subsidized.

I raise beef cattle and hay and neither of those crops get a red cent. People argue that cattle are subsidized when grazing on western federal ranges. Well, if you believe that get yourself a horse and come ride with my riders for a couple days and come tell me that we have it easy with a straight face.

By the time you add up the labor cost with the low grazing fee, it raises our price for a cow to over $30 per month ......... that's about 50% higher than the best irrigated pasture with the leasor providing everything but checking for sick ones.

And I don't have Bull Trout, Salmon, Wolves or Butterflies to deal with!

Yes, butterflies

Best regards

Three44s

[Three44s]

The dairy industry gets subsidized two ways.

One is through milk price supports and the other is through herd buy outs.

The buy outs are a direct assault on beef prices. As the price supports encourage the dairymen to over produce, then the government does a massive buyout and the dairymen dump their herds on the beef market and sink our market.

Three44s

[Gewehr-Guy]

I think the wholesale milk price is now in the $14 cwt. range, so that puts milk about $1.20 a gallon on the tanker leaving the farm. Then they take the cream, pasteurize it, cool it and bottle,store and distribute a heavy and perishable product to the stores it seems a quite a bargian if anyone can buy it for less than $3. I think most of the profits come from the cheese and butterfat products and and the milk is sold sometimes at cost to get people into thestore.

[starmac]

It is my understanding that they sell something like 9 gallons of watered down milk for every gallon the dairy gets paid for, maybe more now that we have 1% milk.

Cheese products doet not come from the same milk, nor even the same dairy. The milk that goes to the cheese plants comes from dairys that have been down graded and can't sell milk to the milk plants, they less money for their milk. Some of them claim they are money ahead to take less money and not have the labor and cost to keep everything clean enough to grade out.

[starmac]

I have sold lots of subsidized hay to ranchers during a drought year, You may have never been subsidized, but that can't be said for all ranchers.

[1911sw45]

And cattle does too.

[Jedman]

Here at a Aldi store milk is $1.09 gal. and .24 a dozen for large eggs.

Jedman

[MT Gianni]

$3.99 a gallon at the local store, Costco runs about $2.75.

[starmac]

Milk is a funny deal up here in Alaska, it has to be shipped up here and it has still always been 3 to 3.50 a gallon since 06 at least. I lived in New Mexico, 80 miles from one of the biggest dairy producing areas in the US and it cost more.

[mold maker]

That Gov cheese was a really high-quality product. I wasn't able to get much but enjoyed every bite. Sure wish I could get some now. It was another case of not gettting what you paid for, cause it was free.

[Three44s]

Ok, we can parse this discussion about hay and cattle.

But the fact is that there are no price supports or set asides like the dairy industry or for some grain growers in beef or hay.

You can hang onto the limited disaster programs and I will cede that as a fact but I think we should take the programs like FEMA and our responses to disasters to the hurricanes etc off the table as well.

I would be fine with taking all the above disaster responses off line. It is a fact that we have never participated on our ranch in any of these drought declarations or even sold hay to our State for their elk feeding program.

It is a fact that the national beef herd sank in 2014 to the lowest level since 1952. Some of that was due to drought, some to massive fires and most of it due to low prices. None of those cash reciepts given to ranchers were due to a price support to raise beef.

If those disaster responses were so profitable or far reaching in scope one would think that cattlemen would have cattle stacked to the heavens by now so as to receive more handouts, not the opposite .... so few cattle?

Three44s

[starmac]

I will give you that, I have never heard mention of any ongoing type of subsidies for ranchers, and I have been around them all my life. As you know cattle prices have fluctuated and at times to the extremes way longer than my lifetime, it is what it is.

[Plate plinker]

The dairy game is a weird one for sure. Wish the GOBERMINT would stay out of the ag business and many other sectors for that matter. Goofy deal I know about is/was the dairy herd reduction program. Sell cows out for cash stay out for i don't remember 1 year? Then same dairy can start up again and repeat the process. I do know of a small guy that did just that. Crazy man just crazy.

[Cheeto303]

My wife and I now have 17 goats, Nubians,La Mancha's and Saanens. We milk them and make our own cheeses (yes we have cheese and soap molds) , yogurt, Kefir and soap. The problem is the government says I can't sell my milk for human consumption. It really grinds my gears. If somebody wants to buy my milk what business is it of theirs.I don't want small government I want itty bitty government.

[starmac]

I think it was last year they were trying to make it against the law for the small producers to sell cheese. There was a big fight over it, but don't know for sure how it turned out. When they stopped folks here from selling milk, some formed coops of a sort so that former or prospective milk buyers can just buy or lease a percentage of the cow, I suppose that would work for goats also.

[Three44s]

Agreed, they make it hard for a small operator to make cheese.

My wife took a crack at learning the craft but ran into road blocks in acquiring the raw milk.

The source she eventually found was recently shut down for a time ... one of our organic dairies.

I thought about our range cows .... milking one or two of them ought to land me in the hospital .... lol

Ok, forget that brain storm!

We bantered around getting a goat but my wife likes her flowers ... so do goats!

Three44s

[starmac]

Milking the goats was my job when I was a kid, have never had the hankering to have a milk goat since I graduated school and left home. lol

[AllanD]

Do the government subsidies offset what dairy farmers are forced to pay to the dairy council?

[lakeparkv8]

The U.S.government supported milk prices for decades, since at least the 1930's, by actually purchasing milk at a set 'floor' price.
That milk was given out, often in the form of "government cheese", as a form of welfare. These handouts of basics - milk, cheese, rice, flour, cooking oil - went on into at least the late 1960s. I can remember seeing the blocks of cheese, labeled " U.S.government - not for sale ". If one wanted the handouts, one went to a certain place on a certain day of the month and got it.
Few people went to get it, unless they absolutely had no other choice. There was a stigma attached to getting handouts, it meant you weren't capable of taking care of yourself and your family.

My, how times have changed.

This is the way it should be now. We would have about 5% of the welfare cost. They would get a JOB and support themselves!

[starmac]

I know the government cheese thing went well into the 80's for sure. In 86 or 7 or so I had a friend, an old bachelor that volunteered at the senior citizens center on days the commodity truck came in. Most recipients, maybe all of them there were senior citizens, and he would help hand out the cheese, rice , beans and some more I can't think of. He lived by himself and didn't like much cheese, so would give me his cheese. At that time it came in a 10 pound round, and was much better than store bought cheese.

I never thought of the milk and cheese the government bought for this reason, school lunches, military meals and probably other reasons, to be a subsidy, more like just a demand on a needed product.
What I always considered farm subsidies were when farmers were paid not to produce, etc. I have a cousin that farms around 6,000 acres the last I knew, and he told me anymore, it was a full time job for one man just to keep up and deal with all the govt involvement.

[Gewehr-Guy]

I remember one time ,maybe back in the late 80's or early 90's there was a drought somewhere and we were all given a small amount of range cubes or lick tubs, according to the number of cows we reported to the FSA. Our area didn't really need the feed but we got it anyway, a typical Gov't program, one size fits none. It seems the govt had a bunch of dried whey powder stored in salt caves somewhere, probably to old to be used for food aid so they paid to have it made into feed and distributed it to where they thought it was needed. Many times programs like this are spread widely, more to buy congressional votes than to really help the bad disaster areas. Anyway, I took my share of the govt "cheese" , a dozen sacks of range cubes, and spoiled the cows for a few days. I wonder if the govt still owns stocks of that whey product?

[historicfirearms]

I haven't had a glass of milk since I was forced to drink it as a kid. Hate the stuff. Some days I have to fly a plane load of dairy and the smell makes me gag. I'm pretty sure it's poison.

[AK Caster]

Did the price of milk go down everywhere? We're now paying $1.50 per gallon. A few weeks ago it was $1.19.

How do you calculate the price went down when you posted it went up $.31 a gallon?

[abunaitoo]

I had to stop drinking milk a while ago. It didn't agree with the tummy.
Went shopping today.
Gallon of mainland milk is $6.00. Local cow milk is $9.00.
OUCH!!!!!!

[Cheeto303]

I had to stop drinking milk a while ago. It didn't agree with the tummy.
Went shopping today.
Gallon of mainland milk is $6.00. Local cow milk is $9.00.
OUCH!!!!!!

Goat milk is great if you are lactose intolerant. It has a smaller molecule and is easier to digest.

[abunaitoo]

I kind of miss milk and cereal.
Other than that, not so much.
Ice water, and green tea, is about all I drink these days.

[Ickisrulz]

How do you calculate the price went down when you posted it went up $.31 a gallon?

Because it had been hovering around $3 per gallon here for years. Then all of a sudden it drops to $1.19 and then back up to $1.50. I guess I should have been more clear.

[mold maker]

I love just about every cheese product but detest milk. I grew up allergic to most breakfast foods and had a daily dose of cheerios and whole milk. My wife insists on cereal at least once a week, but those mornings I go to Hardees for gravy or country ham and egg biscuits.
Like
Clint says, "A mans got to know his limitations".