fTl>e
Dairy
Business
, , Newton Bair
._* z * .
Getting the milk from the cow’s
udder to the breakfast table just
takes too many steps. The obvious
first step is the one that occupies
most of our attention - from the
cow to the bulk tank.
Even that first step in the long
process takes a lot of preparation,
as you well know. And a lot of in
vestment in time and capital.
Once it was a hand job, requiring
no more tools than a dented
bucket, a wooden stool, two deft
hands and a lot of patience. The
capital investment was zilch. Even
the animals themselves could be
had for a few services from the
neighbors ole’ bull. There was
butter on the table, and a little
change in the crock.
Well, we have come a long way
in modernizing and mechanizing
the cow. No more family-cow
herds like Grandpa had. It takes a
hundred or more to support our
modem living habits. And a lot of
mechanization, without which
most of us wouldn’t even consider
milking cows.
Sometimes I think it’s the
machinery we like, instead of the
cows. Maybe we should devise a
way to manufacture milk without
the inconvenience of that contrary
and costly biological critter. Go
directly from the cornfield to the
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bottle! (It’s not impossible you
know, combrew is just illegal.)
But it’s really milk we’re talking
about, not com squeezin’s. I doubt
that there is any better way to
manufacture the stuff than we now
have. The biological factory inside
a cow would be pretty hard to
duplicate, and probably more
expensive than it is worth. But isn’t
it a fascinating possibility
nevertheless?
Start with the alfalfa crop.
Harvest each cutting at the peak of
nutrition, haul it to the nearest
factory, grind it up, and stuff it into
the Milk Machine. Add a few
necessary ingredients like lysine,
riboflavin, niacin, carotene and
some com starch, grind up a few
special rocks that contain the right
minerals, stir gently for a few
hours at 100 degrees Farenheit,
and Presto! A lovely white liquid
comes pouring out the other end. (I
haven’t figured out how to make it
come out white, but someone will.)
The machine would last forever,
with occasional lubrication, and
you are the master in complete
control.
The residue can be made into
breakfast cereal and sold for $2.39
a pound. Everything is completely
predictable. Costs are controlled,
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production is held just below the
demand for the product, so you can
set the price. Sell it to the kids, via
Saturday morning TV.
Now, supposing that it could be
done, would you get rich? Maybe
someone would, but the com
petition would be fierce. Every
farm would have it’s own factory,
and the rush to corner the market
is on.
Lower the price, cut a few
corners, out-bid your neighbor for
more land, borrow big bucks to
expand, and you’re soon growing
bigger and better ulcers where
they hurt the most.
So you see, this little flight of
fantasy has taken us full circuit to
about where we are right now.
Except that the price of milk is set
by the Federal Government. And
the higher the price, the more we
are tempted to produce, and the
surplus grows. It is not a com
petitive price, since it is
established by an artificial process
that is self defeating. If it is based
on the cost of production, there is a
wide range of figures to choose
from and argue about.
Even if we could establish a fair
figure as the cost of producing
milk, who would it be fair to?
There are as many different
“cost” figures as there are in
dividual producers.
• Production from the
730,000 cows in Penn
sylvania amounted to
9.42 billion pounds in
1984. Cash receipts from
marketings of Penn
sylvania milk totaled 1.3
billion dollars.
• With 21,000 dairy
farms, Pennsylvania
ranks fifth in the nation
in total milk production,
producing 7 percent of
the nation’s milk sup
ply.
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And even if the support price
gets as low as $7.00 a hundred,
there will still be a few producers
that will pay their bills and live a
good life while the rest of us go
bankrupt. They will be astute
business managers, who use
techniques adapted to the present.
Not the worn out principles of the
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, fans 7,1956-A37
past 40 years. Like the one that
dictates borrowing your way to
success.
Borrowing, expanding and
mechanizing might produce more
milk more efficiently, but who will
buy it and use it? Maybe the cart is
trying to push th“ horse. Or the
machinery is too fast for the cow.
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