US farmers pour their dairy products down the drain

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The owners of American dairy farms are in disaster: quarantine measures imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic have exacerbated an already ongoing decline in demand for their products for more than one year, NBC reports. As emphasized in the channel's material, they cannot simply stop production, and therefore many of them have to literally pour milk into the sewer.

Life in America has stopped - but American cows have not stopped bringing milk. Meanwhile, due to a sharp drop in demand, dairy farmers have had to pour milk down the drain for some time now.

DAN BASSY, Ohio Dairy Owner, Agresource Chair:This is a terrible waste and tremendous emotional trauma for milkmen, because they work so hard.

Ohio farmer Dan Bassey fears that many of his colleagues will not be able to withstand such financial losses.

DAN BESSY:We are afraid that dairy farms will close down next year if they are not supported.

Restaurants, ice cream shops and schools are closed.

STEVEN MADDOX, California Dairy Owner:30 percent of dairy products produced in the country go to public catering.

This is the milkman Steve Maddox. He keeps 3,000 cows in Riverdale, California. We first met Maddox in 2018.

STEVEN MADDOX:You have to milk the cows every day, and you have to do something with the milk.

Already, Maddox and other farmers have faced a 40 percent drop in dairy prices in recent years, driven by overproduction and proliferation of milk-based alternatives. However, over the past week, the market simply collapsed.

STEVEN MADDOX: Fear of the unknown has driven prices down by almost a third, and it's a little scary.

Sisters Sidney Brooks and Zoe Nelson are sixth generation dairy farmers. They sell all their milk to a local cheese factory in Wisconsin.

ZOWE NELSON, owner of a dairy farm in Wisconsin: Cows cannot be turned off or turned off like a water tap.

But now, due to the drop in demand for cheese …

ZOWE NELSON: Seeing milk just flow into a ditch is a heartbreaking sight.

Such uncertainty reigns against the backdrop of already serious doubts about the future of American milkmen.

DAN BESSY: Dairy producers are now facing serious losses, and that is why, after many difficult years, they are in limbo in terms of the balance of income and expenses.

Farmers have to go into debt; many people declare bankruptcy. Nearly 1,000 farmers stopped production last year alone. For the remaining 42 thousand farms, the main goal now is to live until summer so that the situation with the coronavirus is left behind.

Air date April 13, 2020.