Milk price sees a-maize-ing hike
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 05. 3.07
Only the New York Daily News could write such an appalling headline and of course we repeat it. The price of milk in New York State rose to $ 3.54 per gallon today, up 20% since the end of last year, in a season where milk prices usually drop because of excess production.
"Economists say the situation is fueled in part by the demand for clean-burning ethanol, which is made from corn, the primary feed for dairy cattle. When farmers feed their cows less corn, milk production falls."- We are putting food in our gas tanks instead of our kids.
Thank heavens for bovine growth hormone. or America would be in real trouble! ::Daily News
Humans should not be drinking the milk of another species anyway!
Newsflash: Cows aren't built to eat corn, they're built to eat grass! Perhaps the ethanol boom will have the happy side-effect of forcing dairy farmers to use their brains and get back to raising cattle the way nature intended, but I doubt it.
I think this demonstrates that corn based biofuels are not quite the one-size-fits-all petroleum solution. If the government truly wants to shift 25% of all gasoline consumption to alternative sources, and that alternative source is corn, we are in for a world of hurt.
To produce that much biofuel, we'll have to amp up the amount of cropland on the US. That means less land for foodstuffs, forests, grazing (maybe less cows?), etc.
I've tried to summarize the impact that corn and/or soy will have on land usage and crude oil consumption at my blog:
http://doomindex.wordpress.com
The information is out there, it's hard to imagine that people sill assume that biofuel will save us from our oil addiction.
Ummmm... isn't there some truth in this "appalling" assertion?
The demand on corn crops is one gaping hole of a flaw in the ethanol rage, and observations like this may help people (like our president) to see that the idea of ethanol as the magic "solution" to the energy crisis is just not a sustainable one.
Ethanol's only going to work long term in conjunction with *a lot* of other solutions. If people are raising a red flag already, maybe it's worth a listen...
"We are putting food in our gas tanks instead of our kids"
Oh well, 60% of American kids are obese and don't need the food anyway
This hits me where I hurt. No alternative to milk. I can take the bus to combat rising gas prices, but I can't stop my 3 gallon o' dairy a week addiction.
Seriously, though, this is really bad for the poor kids who don't get their milk through subsidized government programs. This will just widen the nutritional gap.
So if Adults stop drinking milk, that should leave enough for the kids.
We're the ones burning the corn in our gas tanks, lets drop the milk. Reduce demand, lower the price, feed the children.
Yet another reason not to use corn for biofuel. Sugar cane or various grasses are higher yield and don't have this impact.
Not that we should be feeding cows corn anyway...
Why is this a big deal? Everyone here should be buying organic milk which is that price for a half gallon. The corn used for ethanol will not be used to feed people, but rather used to make cheap sweetener and make people fat.
About time dairy prices started going up. Thanks to large scale California dairies, the price of milk has been rock bottom for years forcing many small farmers to sell their land for development. Hopefully this will be passed on to the smaller scale family dairy farmers and actually keep the profession sustainable.
organic ≠ grass fed
You all need to understand something....its not the dairy farmers fault...its the government. they are the ppl who determine the price of milk and when or where it goes up jus like gas prices. You have to remember that fuel prices are up, feed prices are up, and fertilizer prices are up. You cant just sit on the computer and bash farmers. Where would you be without us....naked and hungary?
oh but i thought we all should be vegans so cause all the cows warm the globe more than all the cars appearantly.
so no beef, no milk, no cream, no icecream, no cheese, no animals and then we can all drive hummers. .... :-/
on a more serious note.
i dont think milk or any other food source should go into fuel. i think their waste should definately. i dont think we should promote being vego. i think thats unnatural and its a personal choice. i areas that are useless for food crops but can be used for switch grass, then sure. all bio waste from cities should be state collected and reused, absolutely.
we are going to have over 9 billion ppl to feed in our lifetime. using crops/cattle will promote deforestation - where deforestation is a good reason we are in so much trouble now.
we have to start looking ahead. isnt that why we are in this mess? lets look after our water and food and ensure its not the next global problem. or beer, especially our beer.
why should more corn be produced for corn when we already pay our farmers not to grow on certain land. So they can build more buildings and create more global warming. No wonder even in our own country we have people starving.