Cow producing too much milk? Better kill it

People aren’t drinking as much milk as they used to, and the price has fallen. Yet, there are more dairy cows than ever, all eating feed — and the price of that keeps rising. The result is that $10 of milk can cost $17 to produce. As Bloomberg News writes,

In California, the largest milk-producing state, dairies

lost $1.07 per 100 pounds in April, compared with profits of

$11.23 in July 2007, based on feed costs and milk prices, USDA

data show. In January, the state was the most unprofitable in at

least six years of record-keeping.

“We’re all in survival mode,” said John Gailey, 35, the

general manager and a part owner of the 4,000-cow Milky Way

Dairy near Visalia, California … “I’m surprised we are not hearing

about more people filing for bankruptcy.”

It doesn’t take an economics degree to know that something has to give.