By  E. W. Lang

Block cheese was up six cents this week to close at $1.07 per lb. Five-hundred lb. barrels were up 5 to close at $1.05, and butter lost four cents to close out the week at $1.14 per lb. Non-Fat Dry Milk lost four cents to close at 81 cents per lb., and dry whey was steady at 39 cents. At this moment, May Class IV Milk is $10.05 per cwt. So at least there's not a nine starting the number, but it was an 18 shortly after the first of the year.

I think it was twenty years ago that dry whey was 17 or 18 cents. It was stored in Kansas City caves by the Commodity Credit Corporation, and owned by the Federal Government. They basically said, "Come and get it. If you use it for anything other than human consumption, you can have it." So was the legacy of the old milk price support system as I remember it.  

Here's another legacy, former President Nixon got significant illegal contributions from the dairy industry during His 1972 campaign. I mention this so that as we assign blame for our current dairy situation, we can best decide who among us should cast the first stone.

It seems that every effort to stabilize milk price has a cost, fairness or law related downfall, even Canada's. Up there it's expensive to expand by even one cow, and getting a start is financially out of the question for most anyone of modest means, which is almost everyone. Down here, we made illegal Nixon campaign contributions and then had a 2003 - 2010 herd retirement program class action suit that was settled for $220 million just last year.  

Our democracy and somewhat free market economy is often regarded as the worst economic model and system of government there is or ever was, except for every other system of government and economic model used anywhere or at any time in history. More on that later.

At this writing there wert and art several closed down slaughter houses around the country, and it's hard to keep track. I fear for the major facilities that take in spent dairy cows, or even perfectly healthy, young, good typed, well bred, high producing registered dairy cows designated for slaughter. Let's hope they remain open at full capacity.

Most market cows at Premiere in Withee, Wisconsin, were 41 to 46 cents this week. They were 20 cents higher than that in Turlock, Calif., and lets hope prices don't crash because a major facility has to close over the Covid.

There are a lot of cows that will need a terminal in the next week or so. Dairy cooperatives and handlers are limiting and reducing volumes of milk they are willing to pay market price for in many of the United States. And some very large herds are formulating exit plans with their lenders.

More good cows slaughtered faster means better milk prices sooner, or so I would hope. But with our democratic system of government and somewhat free market economy, who knows for sure? The one thing certain is that our system is never cheap, equal or fair to all involved.