quotas as in milk and poultry

[gaucho]

Its about priorities Allfarmer and as you put it easier to buy... so convenience. People somehow have money to buy water with sugar and color and pay $2.50 / bottle for coke so I don't see the problem... You obviously did not pay attention to what I said about food free day.... 2nd how much milk do you need in a day... no one needs to down a 1 liter per day... that said my kids go through piles of it to but then whats more important the food in your mouth or what you drive?... We all have choices just like how big our families get and so if you think milk is too expensive and your family is going through to much then you should have watched what you were doing at night, wean them of the white stuff or buy Daisy.... I did the math my family Buys $3500 / year worth of milk.... for that I can justify a cow and in fact will have one that calves at the end of March and then dry her of In December... Pretty sad when farmers are as dependent upon the grocery store as their cousins in the cities

[gaucho]

One last thing.... have you bought beef at a store lately.... You think you are not making enough with beef... think about how little your cattle would be worth if the consumer thought beef should be priced so that they could enjoy a tenderloin every day....

[15444]

The next generation of consumers 18-30 year olds, buy very little milk. Largely based on price. I don't know how many times people have told me they compared a 12 pack of Coke to a gallon of milk and sided with the Coke.

I am one of the extremes. I drink at least a 1/2 gallon of milk every day, so the times when I can milk a cow, it pays out pretty quickly. The last one I had was a 1/4 Holstein, 3/4 Hereford and she gave at least a gallon every day over the course of 4 months. At local milk prices over that time period, that was more than the value of a good beef calf.

[smcgrath76]

I giggled at some of this...
Food is too expensive often comes from
households with $1500 of vehicle
payments in a month, yet complain at
spending $100 a week on food.
I do feel for lower income families that
have to make difficult choices, but I
don't think agricultural families should
have to be among those lower income
families making the choices all of the
time...

[burnt]

For a year or two I milked a cow to supply our household which includes/included 4 milk GUZZLING kids. At over 4 liters a day, there appeared to be a savings in having a "house cow".

Well, she also fed a few calves besides the house needs, but all things considered, (diet-finicky Holstein, be-there-twice-a day-every day, cleaning milk, etc. utensils) it was not cheap milk.

It was mostly a make-work project with benefits. Return to labour was almost nil when the time involved was taken into account.But fresh, whole milk is also unbeatable.

So, I say to anyone who thinks milk is too expensive - go milk your own darn cow! But they just don't get it because they have no idea what is involved. Don't go into it thinking you are gonna save a bunch of money.

[grassfarmer]

Yep, it's all about choices and priorities. Many of the "low income" families are the ones with the big vehicle payments, always in front of you in the queue at the gas station buying smokes and lottery tickets but can't afford milk - give me a break. All the moaning about need for food-banks and poverty in our rural communities is not the reality I see for the most part. Way more problems caused by too much food instead of too little.
Nothing wrong with a "house cow" in my book - we were brought up with them and it taught us how to milk at an early age, gave a daily commitment to tend for an animal and a warm barn chore to do before heading out for the day. That's the kind of one to one animal interaction some of the horse owners indulge $thousands a year for.

[ALLFARMER]

gaucho I would suspect we spend about what you do a year maybe a little less. We maybe once every three weeks by potato chips and it is very rare to have pop in this house like 8x a year maybe. The biggest difference is the sale of booze is banned and bar's are not allowed in this town. How may town in Alberta can say that? If you want a drink bad enought its a one hour drive away. It's is a little thing that makes quite a difference.

[DogPatch]

Price of milk is lower because of US Government subsidies. AND some stores will us milk as a lost leader, and easily make it up on something else.

[burnt]

No kidding, Dogpatch, but it is those artificially low prices that CDN consumers think should be the norm here.

We buy our milk weekly for $3.99/4L at either of two stores in our area that do that same thing.

[ag-boy]

yes it did the job after that meeting in Brooks [wilson report ] had 23 replys ! but most of them mist the point .
quota does unfairly increase or product .of chicken and milk !
take this quota paper for 50 milkcows as a sample they are paying over 2 million dollar for . in Alberta
this price is tacked on our milk here so consumer pay over 5 dollar for a jug of milk
here in Montana between 2.65 and 3.45 same jug !!!! no quotas
who can start milking at this price of quota !then have to buy cows and barn etc and hire labour .
same calculation is for the chicken quota all ia added to production cost and price is set by the board .
thanks for that many reply to this topic
this make AGR-VILLE .COM very interesting reading

[burnt]

Simple solution for you. Move to the U.S. where there is no quota, the US buck is low, your land here is high and go right at it and milk cows to your heart's content.

You will be doing the additional service of providing the US consumers with very affordable milk.

Just kidding. You make a good point about the start up cost - it cannot be done unless one is independently wealthy. The risk in milk production is no longer the marketplace - it lies in the system that was set up to protect producers FROM the market place. Kinda funny, really!