Dairy Dual (Part 1 of 2): Small Scale Dairies Verses Industrial CAFOs.

To say it is a tough time to be a small scale dairy farmer is an extreme understatement. For starters, there is this pernicious drought that is ravishing and altering the American landscape. As the government drops gargantuan agriculture subsidies on big businesses and a few select crops, primarily (GMO) corn and soybeans as well as allowing the centralization of slaughterhouses and meat and milk processing facilities, small farmers are having a hefty price tag to bear.

Factory farms now dominate the milk industry. The average factory farm dairy in Oklahoma has 2,400 cows. The remaining small dairy farmers are having to pay more to ship their milk much farther and finding any corn feed for finishing or to supplement if their pasture has dried up can be an expensive nearly full time job on it's own. This article does a great job of summing up the costs of being a small scale farmer while reminding us of the true costs of large scale industrial farming. If you have already eaten lunch, you may wish you hadn't after checking out the new website and book CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) The Tragedy of Industrial Farm Factories and their image of how udderly painful being a commercial dairy cow is.

In contrast, here are some benefits of small scale dairies:

Image used with permission from The Crunchy Mamacita

Meat shortages: The year of the rabbit, or go fish?

On the other side of adorable baby farm animals is usually someone's dinner.

Several places are discussing this week some grim prospects for farmers, animals, and food prices for next year. This year is considered to be the worst drought since the 1930s in much of the mid-west. The grain that was intended to be primarily livestock feed lies stunted, barren, and crisped. Extreme losses for farmers and the inability to get grain is leading to the beginning of a mass and premature slaughtering of animals to peak in early 2013. Prices are expected to soar 14% and there will undoubtedly be increases in global food insecurity.( See the articles in The Guardian and Grist). So, how to respond to such news?