Farmers are panic-buying to keep America’s 95 millions cows fed as fear of feed mill closures and trucking delays mount.
Learn more via @BW: https://t.co/w1QpSUQMEP pic.twitter.com/Vj4QUgaPKe
— QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) April 11, 2020
There’s been discussion, on other threads, of how or why farmers are being affected by the national (and global) lockdowns. American farms, even the ‘family’ ones, are as much a part of the just-in-time supply chains as any other business:
… Just as virus-spooked consumers have rushed to grocery stores to stockpile everything from toilet paper to pasta, farmers raising America’s cattle, hogs, and chickens have filled their bins with feed, fearing the spread of the coronavirus would disrupt their supply chains. “I’ve had some calls from customers of mine looking for feed because the mills are out,” says the Fayetteville, Ark.-based Beaver. “There’s a rush to buy just because of the uncertainty in the market. They just don’t want to be caught without.”
Keeping America’s 95 million cows, 77 million pigs, and 9 billion chickens fed isn’t as simple as it may seem. Farmers are worried their feed mills could close as employees get sick or that their slaughterhouses could slow production, forcing them to keep animals for longer. They’re also concerned that a shortage of trucks, which are being waylaid to supply supermarkets, could make it harder for farm supplies to reach them.
Even the plunge in gasoline demand affects the feed supply. As ethanol plants shut down—because the fuel additive isn’t needed when gas isn’t selling—the animal feed market is being starved of an important ingredient called dried distillers grains (DDGs) that are a byproduct of ethanol production. Distillers grain is a key ingredient in rations for beef cattle and dairy cows.
The rush to fill bins hasn’t happened only in the U.S. French feedmakers stepped up ingredient purchases at the start of the lockdown, and demand jumped as plants that produce biofuels started to slow down. A similar trend occurred in Germany last month. “This is a new phenomenon,” says David Webster, head of animal nutrition and health at Cargill Inc., adding that the agribusiness giant has seen its global feed sales volume climb 10% or more in the past month. “We saw a bit of this in China in February, but now we are seeing globally, in every geography that we operate in, so it’s testing the system, so to speak.”…
Still, because farmers’ bin space is limited, they can’t really hoard the same way that consumers are doing, says David Hoogmoed, president of the Purina Animal Nutrition unit of Land O’ Lakes Inc. (The Purina that makes the dog and cat food is owned by Nestlé SA.) “What we are seeing isn’t a run on feed, but a keep-everything-full scenario,” he says. “While the producer [in the past] may have run things down to the last minute and ordered feed for tomorrow, they are building in, in their inventory management, more of a safety stock.”…
Another complication for the meat producers — if the processing plants aren’t open, nobody’s selling livestock:
There’s been a spike in coronavirus cases at meat plants in the U.S. https://t.co/ATVFMdMQ5Z
— Bloomberg (@business) April 12, 2020
Here’s an explanation from a (Canadian) farmer about the other side of the demand/supply chain. I’ve stripped out some of the twitter framing to save space:
In case you are wondering, it’s not a fun thing to do. We are proud of the work we do & the nutrition we provide. We don’t want to see that wasted.
— Andrew Campbell (@FreshAirFarmer) April 8, 2020
Of course the question comes to why. First off it has nothing to do with price. Milk in Canada has a fixed price coming from the farm, depending on what it’s used for. Whether it’s a big order or a small one, whether it’s today or the first of March – the price is set.
Second has to do with shelf life. Of course milk doesn’t last forever and this is especially true of raw, unpasteurized milk. It’s required to be picked up from our farm within 72 hours. And then would need to be processed within a day or two. It can’t just sit and wait.
Third challenge is storage. I said it’s required to be picked up within 72 hours, but our farm & most others only have 48 hours worth of milk storage on farm. That’s because milk is picked up every 48 hours. It would be an extra cost that would have to be accounted for.
The same is with tanker trucks. There are enough milk trucks to pick up every farm every 48 hours. But there isn’t a fleet waiting for more. That would be an extra cost that no one has wanted to pay. So once it’s picked up, it has to be unloaded within the day.
That brings us to processors. And I feel for all of them right now.
Before this started, demand was pretty constant. Tim Hortons would need a pretty steady amount of cream week to week. My Loblaws store would need a pretty steady amount of 2%.Processors would be able to adapt to small increases or decreases. But what’s happened over the last few weeks is nothing short of a absolute shock to the system. Plus, many are working with new rules of physical distancing for employees to make sure they stay healthy & operating
Figures out of the US (Cdn #’s should come soon) show increases through retail of 53% in milk, 84% in cheese, 127% for butter. All while food service demand collapsed.
Keep in mind food service wants buckets of sour cream, not tubs, or 10lb bags of shredded cheese, not packets. Think even cream where Tim’s uses a big bag of cream through a SureShot machine, while you want 500ml at a time.
Those processing lines can’t change overnight. It takes millions in new equipment and packaging to convert those. So you’ve got retail lines that can’t keep up while food service lines are completely backed up or shut down.
Having processing lines just sitting waiting for this occassion would be another cost that no one wanted to cover. It would have been passed on to consumers that typically don’t want to pay more than they have to.
Finally you’ve got retail logistics. If it took 2 truck loads a day to keep a grocery store stocked in February, all the extra demand means it now might take 3 or 4. That’s more trucks. More drivers.
Unfortunately all that combined meant something have to break. In our business of milk, some raw milk had no where to go. So a few hundred farms out of the 3900 in Ontario were asked to dump 2 days worth of production. The next question is what about food banks?
It’s a great question. But again we run into the challenge of it being raw and unpasteurized. A food bank can do nothing with a 40,000L tanker at its back door. They aren’t processors.
If anyone knows of an available line that can pastueruize, process and package milk I’d love to hear from them. But all those lines are tied up filling orders for grocers. And foodservice lines aren’t packaging in a usable form for food banks.
Fortunately, as dairy farmers in ON we’re donating close to 100K litres each month to food banks. Not because of the crisis, but because hundreds of farms have done it for many years. That milk was donated last month, the month before and the month before that. It will continue.
We can do better though. But the food chain can’t evolve overnight. @modernfarmer had a great thread on this subject. It’s pinned on his profile so look it up & make sure you’re following his story as a pig farmer.
“Producers stuck with vast quantities of food they cannot sell are dumping milk, throwing out chicken-hatching eggs and rendering pork bellies into lard instead of bacon. They can’t easily shift products bound for restaurants into the sizes, packages & labels for supermarkets.”
— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) April 10, 2020
Keep in mind that a lot of American ‘family’ farmers are now subcontractors to giant agribusiness chains — their never-generous profits depend on the calculation by non-farming MBAs as to what will be most profitable for stocks and taxes, not food supply to hungry consumers…
"As much as 7% of all milk produced in the U.S. last week was dumped, Mr. Rodenbaugh said, and he anticipates that percentage will continue to increase…Howard Bohl, who milks 450 cows in east-central Wisconsin, said he sent about 20 cows to slaughter last week."
— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) April 10, 2020
Important to note that this is also happening with vegetable crops: https://t.co/pU9Rc5ootv
— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) April 11, 2020
Disruptions from the novel coronavirus pandemic are threatening to cut off supply chains and increase food insecurity. But the issue isn’t food scarcity — at least, not yet. Rather, it’s the world’s drastic measures in response to the virus. https://t.co/BdiwVUBdJa
— CNN International (@cnni) April 11, 2020
… “Supermarket shelves remain stocked for now,” the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said in a report released late last month. “But a protracted pandemic crisis could quickly put a strain on the food supply chains, a complex web of interactions involving farmers, agricultural inputs, processing plants, shipping, retailers and more.”
The issue, however, is not food scarcity — at least, not yet. Rather, it’s the world’s drastic measures in response to the virus.
Border closures, movement restrictions, and disruptions in the shipping and aviation industries have made it harder to continue food production and transport goods internationally — placing countries with few alternative food sources at high risk.
Airlines have grounded thousands of planes and ports have closed — stranding containers of food, medicine, and other products on tarmacs and holding areas, said the UN Conference on Trade and Development on March 25.
Heightened instability in global food supply will affect the poorest citizens most, warned the UN’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in a paper last month…
Click the link for more information on how logistics are affecting countries like China, Australia, and the island nations in Southeast Asia & the Pacific, which faced the first brunt of the pandemic.
Barbara
The consequences of not having done everything we could in the beginning are going to be vast. I wait daily — and really I don’t have to wait, the drumbeat is already starting — for the sneering platitudes that really, this is like a war, and it is your duty to risk your life for the economy. By people who will make sure that they are well-segregated from everyone else.
Baud
Very informative. Thanks, AL.
Lapassionara
The waste of food is so heart-breaking. I keep thinking, if only we had a functional government, surely some steps could be taken to avoid this outcome.
donnah
The loss of life, loss of economy, loss of trust all tied up in this virus are staggering. I cried the other day as I watched the burial of those unidentified people in a mass grave. It’s overwhelming.
And the ripple effect, with wave after wave of loss as described in the article, isn’t even going to be measurable for years, as one set of losses creates more and the ripples expand further.
It’s really only the beginning.
Kirk Spencer
@Lapassionara: Yes and no.
We’d have still seen some disturbance. But if we’d started working on this in a timely fashion, with a plan that recognized the disruption was coming (Like, you know, the plan the current administration ignored), we’d have seen less of it.
JustRuss
Coming soon to a Covid-19 briefing near you: “Nobody knew the agricultural supply chain was so complicated.”
germy
I thought milk had industrial uses, other than for food consumption.
I thought it was used as an ingredient in some glues and other products. I guess that’s no longer true.
debbie
@Lapassionara:
Right? Someone to steady and calm us down would be nice about now.
germy
@debbie:
Gore open to idea of Obama as ‘coronavirus czar’ under Biden
scav
@germy: Well, it’s not as though industrial uses will instantly gear up (in a pandemic) and use all the extra milk, is it?
JPL
Food banks are desperate and the idea that Sanderson Farms Inc would just toss their food is awful
People are broke and hungry.
germy
@scav: If only there were a way to store it.
cain
@germy:
Get one of the up and coming women to do it. I would be open to AOC being the czar.
p.a.
Thank you Chicago School of Economics! Thanks Milton! Thanks Federalist Society! Thanks Rehnquist (et al)! Thanks Roberts (et al)!
Lapassionara
@germy: Washington Examiner links should come with a warning.
debbie
@germy:
They could convert it all into something with a much longer shelf life, like Carnation evaporated milk.
I think they’re tossing it only because they can and fuck everyone else.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: everything about that sentence will enrage The Beast
germy
@Lapassionara: It’s funny… their headline is meant to scare their readers.
Meanwhile, that same headline reassures me.
Benw
Happy Easter. I hope everyone and your loved ones are healthy and safe.
Joe Falco
@Barbara: If this was really treated like an existential threat that a war between rival powers would be, a competent and fully functioning government would require sacrifices of Industry and Capital to efficiently generate food and supplies and deliver them to a populace to reduce the strain of war and maintain confidence in the government using whatever measures are needed to accomplish the task.
But that would require the kinds of sacrifices Trump is not willing to make, so actual human lives are placed in its stead.
scav
@germy: It certainly would be nice if there was a bit more storage cabability, flexibility and redundancy in the system, But the current dogma is lean, just in time, cut the fat! economic efficiency and get entirely out of the way of any possible immediate profit to be wrung. Funny, a brittle system is breaking.
But they are doing it fast — purely economic motivations leapt on post haste. I’d almost imagine that there a written plans somewhere about ways to divert things and adjust — hhhhmmmm, where would those plans be . . ,
I think I read of some bakeries in the UK ordering their flour in bulk quantities and producing and distributing household sizes themselves.
senyordave
@cain: IMO this is a case where experience would matter. Gore has been involved in politics at local, state and national levels. He knows a lot of people and a lot of people know him. If you are in a position that may require coordination on a massive scale, I think that experience and contacts are invaluable.
WaterGirl
I would happily see Katie Porter in charge of just about anything.
If I were in charge of her campaign, the bumper stickers would just say:
“Do not fuck with Katie Porter.”
MomSense
I’m furious. All of this ALL OF THIS could have been managed with competent governance.
I’m grateful for our local farms because I know I can access fresh produce, dairy, eggs, poultry, meat and seafood. If we survive this and after we elect a Democratic President, I encourage everyone to get active in creating local farms. Maine started a program, funded by license plates, that has been transformational.
germy
Brachiator
So, conservatives, protecting Trump’s flank, were happy to see red states resist measures designed to slow the spread of the pandemic. And many of them are hot to ramp up the economy again.
And now, as always, it turns out that right wing obstruction only complicates things or makes things worse, as farmers try to react to the impact of the virus on their operations and the supply chain.
There will be similar issues getting food to restaurants, hotels and other venues which use somewhat different operations as those used to get food to supermarkets.
germy
@Joe Falco:
Brachiator
Posting from my smartphone. Meant to add that it is unfortunate that we don’t have a competent federal government that could help coordinate state recovery efforts, focusing on farms and industry.
Instead we have an idiot president who thinks he can wave a sharpie pen like a magic wand and simply declare “Now back to work!”
MoCA Ace
@debbie: No, its the same problem throughout. The dry milk industry is sized to supply what we need just when we need it. There is very little slack in most production/storage/transport chains.
And everything is mechanized… so, for instance, those production line videos you see with containers being filled and flying by at a zillion miles and hour only work with that specific container.
WereBear
I can live on the meat, dairy, eggs, greens, and apples I can get locally :)
Joe Falco
@germy: It all goes to show what kind of people are willing to vote for Trump more than the man himself, back in 2016 and especially now. It’s just so illuminating. Like turning on a light to reveal the cockroaches in a room.
WhatsMyNym
Even when no other eggs were available, my local coop still had local pasture raised eggs. Few want to pay the price for them. Same with milk, you could still buy the real thing. We have this system because everyone wants cheap food.
The Moar You Know
@MomSense: If you are referring to decisions made by the government in regards to how America’s food production and distribution policies were enacted and implemented over the last fifty years, then yes.
If you’re referring to what has happened during this pandemic during the last year, no, there wasn’t a fucking thing the government, any government, could have done about what’s about to come down the pike WRT to food availability. Way too late for that. Our system was simply not built to adapt to large changes in demand or supply. Now we have a biggie.
Just like what’s happening with availability of hospital capacity. The government, starting forty years ago, could have done what Germany’s did and mandated hospital capacity appropriate to population min any given area. We didn’t do that; private enterprise and the “health insurance industry” must have its way. We closed hospitals by the hundreds starting in the 1970s and never stopped. And the result is we have urban areas barely adequately staffed, and rural areas with no hospital capacity at all. The result is that Germany has three times as many hospital beds per person as America does.
“Just in time” industrial production was meant for car manufacturers and assumes a fully functional supply chain. It was not meant for health care or food production, but that’s what we’ve gotten. And you can lay the blame for that on every single administration and member of Congress since the day of Jimmy Carter, there are no partisan exemptions or exceptions. “Both Sides” really did this.
cain
@senyordave:
Yes I suppose that makes sense. Both Gore and Obama have the ability to do this.
Citizen Alan
@WhatsMyNym: Well yeah. Everyone wants cheap food because expensive food is, for some people, unaffordable food which is a recipe for social unrest and mass starvation. Which is why the whole ag sector should be heavily regulated and subsidized if not nationalized.
The Moar You Know
@germy: Just one I know of (used to be a guitar builder, learned a lot about old-school woodworking and furniture during that time of my life): milk paint. You could take care of the world demand for that stuff with a 10-cow herd.
Hide glue comes from hide and hoof, not milk.
Geminid
If I were King of the World I would get as much surplus milk as possible converted to dried milk and canned condensed milk, convert idle passenger jets to cargo, and fly the milk to the many places around the world where poor people are now starving. As much as possible using biofuels and net carbon neutral jet fuel.
chris
@Citizen Alan: “cheap food”
If real food was sold at real food prices a whole bunch of people would have to be paid a lot more for their labour. We can’t have that now, can we?//
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy, @Lapassionara:
Truth. The Examiner is a right-leaning outlet that strives (not always successfully) to avoid tipping into outright nutbaggery. It was founded by bona fide nutbag billionaire Philip Anschutz (climate change denial, intelligent design, etc., etc.) as an explicit alternative to the godless commie Post.
And that story is a prime example of a clickbait tactic I hate: Someone (Bill Maher ?) asks someone (Gore) a leading question (“Wouldn’t Obama be great at this?!”), and then when Gore gives a mild, almost noncommittal answer (“He would be good at anything he does, but, hey, let’s make sure he wants to do it”) it gets trumpeted as: “Gore demands Obama as coronavirus czar!” Click, click, click, click.
Because it’s the Examiner, they toned it down slightly—Gore is “open to the idea”—but the effect is pretty much the same: RWNJ (and, because it’s the Examiner, libertarian) outrage.
WereBear
@chris:
THIS. It’s horrible how many people live on, and feed their children on, the dollar menu locally.
chris
@Geminid: The extra canned and dried milk production lines do not exist. Read the twitter thread.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Steeplejack (phone): all true, but like Michelle Bachmann “warning” that a vote for Biden is a vote for a third Obama term, this may be a story (or click-bait tweet that goes viral) that has the opposite effect they’re hoping for
WhatsMyNym
@chris: Cheap food…
Yes. The eggs were $10 a dozen and I bought them.
Daddio7
@Citizen Alan: Will the government in charge of all the food be an Obama style or a Trump style or maybe even a Stalin style? Hunger Games anyone?
Steeplejack (phone)
@senyordave:
Obama is the (allegedly) proposed czar, not Gore.
The Moar You Know
@chris: What I was going to say but you said it better. This is a systemic failure, not a political one.
We need to take a hard look as a society as to whether we want to keep paying for the systems that got us to this point today. In a sane society, the obvious answer would be “fuck no” but I think I can make a pretty clear case that American society is not sane and has been laboring under a dangerous delusion of the merits of unregulated capitalism, the supposed merits of which certainly can’t be shown by any results that I’ve seen in my entire lifetime (54 years and hopefully many more).
debbie
@Brachiator:
We have a president who thinks it isn’t his problem to rescue — or even help — the states.
Jeffro
Why, it’s almost as if a few $B in pandemic protection, test labs, and PPE stockpiles would have been WAY THE HELL WORTH IT!!!???
thanks, trumpov!!
Elizabelle
To remind: Andrea Bocelli will sing a concert at 1:00 pm Eastern — 30 minutes from now.
This Newsweek story has the video link embedded. I think Bocelli will air via youtube.
Elizabelle
Another point on milk: in Europe you can get milk and cream in shelf-stable tetrapaks — there is fresh milk in the refrigerated cases too, but the boxed milk is lovely.
I wish we did that here. It stores better; would be excellent in emergencies, etc.
We could change our consumer habits and demand the tetrapaks.
MoCA Ace
@The Moar You Know: this!
Our ultra-cheap food requires abundant cheap immigrant labor and industrial specialization. These specialized systems are by definition more at risk from disruptive forces. Resilient systems are by nature slower and cost more to operate.
On that note, my 13 free range hens are now pumping out 7 to 9 eggs a day on almost no store bought feed. They spend their day, sunup to sundown, roaming my property scratching up seeds, insects, and vegetation. They are immune to COVID19 disruptions. It is not, however a system that can be ramped up overnight.
chris
@WereBear: Carbs are cheap, protein is expensive and $8-10-12/hr doesn’t go far.
JaySinWA
@The Moar You Know: The counterpoint to that argument is the hundred year flood argument. If it is expensive to deal with events that happen rarely, it won’t happen, unless it becomes less rare. People as a rule don’t plan for things they don’t expect to happen in their lifetimes. Some do, but most live day to day.
Geoboy
Is anybody else tired of all this winning yet?
laura
I remember govt. cheese. If we had a working government, the USDA could return to stockpiling and redistributing commodities. Food stamps and government purchases helped the farmer and the consumer until some Chicago School economics and some Ivy business school fuckwits decided that we need to punish poor people in order for wealthy people to feel satisfied and justified by their lot in life.
All this abundance and all this need and for want of a nail……
mrmoshpotato
@senyordave: Experience for a project this size is VITAL!
A first-term Congresswoman who’s not old enough to run for President won’t cut it.
MattF
John Horton Conway, a great mathematician, has died, reportedly of coronavirus. Best known for inventing the Game of Life and Surreal Numbers, he brought a rare joy to the field. Scott Aaronson comments.
JaySinWA
He subscribes to “The Lord helps them that helps themselves” and he sees himself as a Lord helping himself to whatever he can grab. Everyone else can fight for the scraps.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro: Don’t thank Dump. Thank all of the selfish, shitpile children who just HAD to tell Hillary to get fucked. They had no choice because “Ewwwww!!! Hillary!”
joel hanes
@The Moar You Know:
re: no contingency hospital capacity and no contingency food supply
Well said.
BTW, how are your teeth? I’ve been worrying about you.
Gvg
@debbie: oh for fucks sake, did you not even read the artical? Everything takes equipment and workers to turn raw food into containers, and transportation has to be arranged with workers on lockdown and borders closed. Every single use of the food is specialized with it’s own processes and equipment not to mention trained workers. You can’t just snap your fingers and connect raw food to people somewhere else and have it happen. That’s not even mentioning that farmers know certain processing plants and buyers, they don’t know every buyer in some other market…connections have to be made and food spoils and animals keep eating.
keep in mind the last time we had this near disruption, it was 102 years ago. It is impossible to maintain equipment for something like this that long. Plans, yes. We could have done much better, but there was never any way to avoid some of it.
the farmer is just not being petty. You are being unrealistic and unfair.
Ohio Mom
Elizabelle @50: I found boxed milk on a shelf in the health food section of my Kroger’s: Horizon organic low-fat. I bought two four-packs at the beginning of the pandemic, just in case, because I must have coffee.
A Ghost to Most
@mrmoshpotato: Selfish assholes. I have a standing joke with my wife, that when our SIL dies, her gravestone will have one word: “Mine”.
Geminid
@chris: I read the thread and yeah, I know they don’t exist. Yet.
Baud
I should buy a cow.
Elizabelle
@Ohio Mom: Yes! Coffee is my milk use, with the occasional recipe in there too. Must have good milk for coffee.
In Germany, erred in buying condensed milk (ugh) for coffee once before learning what they called cream. Although 2% milch is always preferred.
laura
@The Moar You Know: used to be a guitar builder, learned a lot about old-school woodworking and furniture during that time of my life
Dude! If you’re a Luthier, say it loud and say it proud.
ThresherK
Was it the Great Depression, or perhaps a panic in the late 19th century, where we first had a mass effect of farmers dumping foodstuffs while there were also shortages in the shops?
ziggy
Yes, our food is TOO cheap, and we pay heavy costs in environmental damage, sub-par nutrition, exploited workers, and a fragile system because of that. I’ve forced the household to buy expensive, mostly locally-raised food (won’t cook dinner without it!), for those reasons. I really think it pays for itself with improved long-term health, and it tastes really good! But it is hard to pay what food is really worth, when you can get it so much cheaper, especially now that money is tight.
Another Scott
“This is insanity” – no, it isn’t. It’s the easily predictable result of shutting down ~ 1/3 of the just-in-time US economy. Sensible leaders of the Federal Government could have prepared a timeline of what was likely to happen and a ways to mitigate it.
Nobody could have predicted will be our epitaph if we don’t vote the monsters out.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Booger
@debbie: Show your work or tell us what kind of farming you do. Otherwise don’t toss such nonsense around.
debbie
@Gvg:
Oh, okay, I guess it’s unreasonable to expect Americans to adapt. Good to know.
ETA: By the way, there are manufacturers adapting to make ventilators. Fuck with your theory at all?
WhatsMyNym
Don’t forget we have had milk gluts the last few years anyway. One of the reasons we have almost no (maybe none now) dairy farms on this corner of the Olympic Peninsula in WA.
ETA: this has forced prices even lower in the US for farmers, who were already cutting expenses to stay in business.
AliceBlue
@Elizabelle: I remember seeing boxed milk in the local grocery stores years ago–I think the brand was Parmalot. I don’t know what happened to it.
debbie
@Booger:
Show me your work where no one should have to adjust to make a situation better for other people.
Baud
@AliceBlue:
Amazon has it.
https://www.amazon.com/slp/boxed-milk/6syvsw6dbckz3pe
BobS
@The Moar You Know: You’re right with respect to ‘just in time’ supply chains being baked into the system, which makes us more vulnerable to disruptions. Smart observers have warned of this for years.
However, MomSense is also 100% correct- much of what we’re experiencing could have been mitigated had a competent federal government responded with a quicker, more coordinated effort, reducing the strain the system is experiencing. The Trump administration failed at what (to me) is the primary function of a national government, i.e. defending the country.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Baud:
Heh, all “currently unavailable.” ?
AliceBlue
@Baud: Cool!
scav
@debbie: Well, that reveals your assumption that anyone not instantly spouting wave one’s arms in the air idealized solutions is trying to kill people. Recognizing that it’s not easy to get from where we are to where we ideally could be — certainly not in time to ease actual people living now — is not a sin. It’s sort of the other part of being reality based.
AliceBlue
@Steeplejack (phone): It figures.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Pretty amazing that artists all over the world are giving us a gift. First part goosebumps, then tears.. He is amazing.
zhena gogolia
Whenever I get into a reasonably good mood I come here and that’s the end of it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
MoCA Ace
@zhena gogolia: Yes, it’s one constant in my life too. Yet I keep coming back… for the snark!
trollhattan
Devin Nunes’ cow has not weighed in yet.
IDK how the California dairy industry is faring beyond having to dump milk. It’s the nation’s largest: yet another fuck you to Wisconsin.
TomatoQueen
@AliceBlue: It’s still around in small quantities, that is to say some vendors carry it, altho’ you’re more likely to find it gathering dust in a RiteAid/Walgreen’s/drugstore. Horizon (pricey organic) is the more available brand. The trouble with it is the packaging, which is not recyclable, as well as the taste, which is borderline between Feh! and Ick!, unless used in coffee, which transforms it into “that’s bearable”. The story of the family that made an unspeakable fortune from shelf-stable packaging featured greed and drug-related overdose deaths, of course, and I remember vaguely it was in Vanity Fair some years ago, around the time the unrecyclable aspect became unsavory. This is my experience with it, YMMV.
Elizabelle
@JPL: It was wonderful. I think we can watch it again, too.
So eerie to see aerial shots of deserted Milan (7:30 pm there) and deserted NYC. Nothing like this before in our lifetimes.
Elizabelle
@TomatoQueen: Ooh, gonna look that up. Vanity Fair, hmm?
WaterGirl
@TomatoQueen: I guess the question for me is how it compares to evaporated milk and powdered milk, which are the other options if fresh milk isn’t available.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: How can the post office suddenly be on the verge of collapsing?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@debbie: That adaptation to ventilators is talking a lot of time and money.
The food the farmers are dumping now would be spoiled by the time the adapted processes are in place.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl:
and…
Also, The Beast’s lizard brain hates the USPS because of Bezos, and now vote-by-mail
pamelabrown53
@Elizabelle:
Watched it. It was eerie seeing him and his organist alone in that humongous cathedral. At the end, he walks out of the cathedral to a microphone and in front of the cathedral sings “Amazing Grace”. They showed empty iconic places in Paris, London and New York-all empty. Big, silent tears started rolling down my cheeks…and I am not a crier.
Kent
And you would bankrupt and toss into poverty many millions of small farmers in the developing world if you did that.
chris
@WaterGirl: Heh, Republicans, of course!
Geminid
@MoCA Ace: Kind of like having a poison ivy rash. You know you shouldn’t scratch, but….
Aziz, light!
@debbie: Well, there’s nothing wrong with our immensely complicated modern way of life that your righteous indignation can’t fix overnight. Thank you for your concern.
LuciaMia
Dont worry. Trump will put Jared onto the problem. Solved!
Ruckus
@Joe Falco:
When the currency is worth more than the lives…..
Of course this is a major failing in the world at the moment, not like it hasn’t been for a very, very long time. We even have a single word that encapsulates the concept. And we have to talk about it and recognize it and get with the idea that it is no longer possible to worship currency above all else. It was never right but it was less dangerous to mankind when it didn’t effect the entire world on a continuous basis. But now when the entire world is interconnected it does make a huge difference and effects all lives, 99% of them negatively.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
It would be a mistake to misunderstand Katie.
As I think some are going to find out the hard way. Which is unfortunately the only way most of them are capable of finding out anything.
wvng
I live in Hardy County, WV, the poultry capital of the state. Of course that means huge integrated poultry operators, with independent operators owning and managing flocks in poultry houses. Broilers, egg layers, peep production, turkeys. Millions and millions of birds in a geographic region that feeds to the processing plants in Moorefield, WV and Rockingham County, VA. The broilers in particular are on a very tight timeline, roughly seven weeks from peep to slaughter. The processing plants for broilers are set up for a certain size bird and if the birds are left in the poultry houses they get too big very quickly. The processing plants are beehives of activity, with a mixture of local workers and internationals here on visas. The international workers tend to live in close quarters, and the production lines are close quarters, and this is a disaster in the making. No reports of covid in that population yet, but it really is just a matter of time, at which point the whole thing probably falls apart. I have been deeply concerned about this for months. I agree that it would be better to raise animals under a different system, but this is the system we have now.
Sab
@zhena gogolia: This made me laugh, becauseI was just thinking the same thing.
Duane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No USPS no voting by mail. Winning. I really don’t put anything past the mobster Russian conman anymore.
ellenr
You’re correct.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
There’s music—and flowers—in the morning thread.
L85NJGT
There is no curative treatment for Covid 19.
Germany didn’t provider side their way out of this pandemic with bed count. They have used public health measures to flatten their curve – early lockdowns, social isolation, extensive testing and tracing those with the virus, and have been very successful. Even at that they are pushing fatalities out along the curve unless a successful course of treatment or vaccination is developed.
Geminid
@Kent: I understand how dumping cheap or free food in developing countries is detrimental to the farmers. This would be an emergency measure to keep people alive and not damaged by malnutrition in the near term during a crisis, and would not preclude making the most of local agricultural production and transport in the short and the long term. And there is also not enough biofuel and net carbon neutral fuel in current production to fuel many flights; changing that is in my plans too. However, The Emperor of the Universe has not yet made me King of the World. But if he’s reading Balloon Juice, he should know I’m staying near my phone.
L85NJGT
@Baud:
I headed into to town to do just that, but then I saw this bag of magic beans:
and just had to have it!
Elizabelle
@L85NJGT: Talked to a friend in Bavaria today. German police are enthusiastically ticketing those who are out and about and are not supposed to be. (I think it’s still OK to hike around the neighborhood.)
Another Scott
@TomatoQueen:
The Horizon 2% milk I’ve bought in cartons made by Tetrapak recently claim to be recycleable – dunno how they do it, or if it depends on the locality doing the recycling. But at least they seem to be trying to do so. Presumably the shelf-stable cartons are similar?
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@pamelabrown53: I will watch it again. Was gluing stuff, and missed most of the visuals.
For anyone who missed it. Youtube link for Andrea Bocelli: Music For Hope – Live From Duomo di Milano.
You don’t get a visual until about 40 seconds in — just skip ahead — and then have some waiting time still.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: We used to make cheese from surplus milk, remember Govment Cheese?
Robert Sneddon
@Geminid: I actually thought you were being sarcastic in your first post, about waving a magic wand and flying surplus diary products around the world just like that (using biofuels that don’t exist in quantity). But you weren’t. I am stunned.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
More details from GovExec:
https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/04/usps-requests-75b-emergency-funds-keep-agency-alive/164506/
and earlier
https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2020/02/house-votes-end-controversial-usps-payments-future-retirees-health-care/162912/
As always, it’s an easily foreseeable problem with an obvious and easy to implement solution, but the Teabaggers and Donnie and his minions want to punish unions and privatize essential services more than just about anything…
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Indeed.
And it takes a lot of milk to make cheese…
https://www.lamaisondugruyere.ch/visits-discoveries/the-cheese-factory/
But, one needs big vats to pour the milk into, one has to get the milk to the factory, one has to process the milk before putting it in the trucks, etc., etc.
These are solvable problems, but they take time and they take planning by sensible people who know what they’re doing.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
@Geminid: In almost all instances, malnutrition and starvation is due to poverty not lack of food. That is especially the case in these sorts of crisis which are not caused by drought or other natural disasters.
If you want to feed people in Guatemala or India or wherever, give them money to buy food locally. I worked in Guatemala a few years after the massive earthquake in 1977. It was the classic textbook example of the counter-productive results of food aid. Here’s an article from the time. Same principle applies today: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/06/archives/us-food-aid-seen-hurting-guatemala-donations-sent-after-1976-quake.html
When you parachute in food aid from the US you disrupt local food distribution networks, bankrupt local food producers and markets, and then leave them worse off when you leave.
Another Scott
@Kent: +1
The world is a system. Things we do here to get rid of excess quantities (milk or steel or sugar) has an impact elsewhere.
Cheers,
Scott.
SFAW
OT, but this tweet from Sean McCabe compares (in a handy graph) the failures of Obama vs. the successes of Bush and Trump.
Kent
@Another Scott: Who in their right mind is going to invest millions in a new commercial cheese factory to absorb surplus milk when that surplus is likely to disappear in 6 months to a year when the virus goes away? By the time you get it built the crisis may be over.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: The US Government used to pay folk to do that on an ongoing basis back before the 80’s.
EthylEster
@WhatsMyNym: Regarding your remarks about the price of eggs….I have been eating eggs from Vital Farms for a couple of years. (I had my own hens for 5 years.) They look and taste like eggs laid by pastured hens. Often available at Fred Meyer for $5. Thick shells and very orange yolks. I never buy their organic line; organic eggs are BS.
Kent
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes, and it just piled up until much of it was discarded.
We already have a bail-out program that will give direct aid to farmers. If it needs to be adjusted, so be it. I wouldn’t be wasting money to create a lot of generic blocks of cheddar cheese for which there is no market.
mrmoshpotato
Related to the mobster idiocy.
Baud
@SFAW:
Leaves off the Bowling Greene massacre.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
They’re all Patriot Mail Recipients.
Baud
@L85NJGT:
If that’s true, that’s a scandal for the campaign. Or should be.
Kelly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@WaterGirl:
The mandate to pre fund at an unprecedented level has to be a time bomb planted by the privatize everything fanatics. The is no business case for it. No private company and no government entity works like that.
EthylEster
@Geminid wrote: If I were King of the World I would get as much surplus milk as possible converted to dried milk and canned condensed milk.
I think you would need to be the Wizard of the World and use your magic wand.
Another Scott
@Kent: Things go in cycles, and just-in-time breaks far too easily.
But I sort-of expect raising cows to decrease over time. They take too much land, too much feed, make too much methane (from their burps, not their farts), generate too much solid and liquid waste, etc. It doesn’t seem to be sustainable to me.
But if we don’t have to worry about over-production/crashing distribution of cheap milk and cheese, then we’ll have to worry about the same for oat “milk” or any other substitute. The main issue is the fragility of the supply chains, not the particular products. And that fragility can be addressed by regulations.
The Magic of the Marketplace won’t solve this problem, because it can’t. That’s why governments and politics was invented – to solve communal problems that can’t be solved by trade, etc.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Kent:
This is interesting because people often assume that existing local food networks are insufficient or have been severely disrupted. I confess that I often thought that. But I have tried to pay attention to the way that the people were in these countries sometimes view relief efforts as a mixed blessing.
Kent
@mrmoshpotato: Trump might threaten to veto aid for the USPS but he isn’t actually going to do it if it is bundled into a larger coronavirus aid package. He is just trying to bend the Senate to his will and get them to carry water for him.
Dems absolutely need to call his bluff. Also on the vote by mail stuff. Force him to actually veto it and torpedo aid to the country. He won’t do it.
Kent
Dems should just repeal or adjust that mandate as part of a coronavirus aid package. They hold the cards. If Trump wants any chance at re-election he needs to get these bills passed.
ziggy
@EthylEster: Love Vital farms eggs! When I had a shortage of laying hens, that was one of my fallback eggs (can’t stomach battery hen eggs anymore). I love how you can go to the website, type in the farm name, and watch the hens at work.
I’m curious why you say organic eggs are a crock?
EthylEster
@Another Scott: Presumably the shelf-stable cartons are similar?
Here in Seattle, we have always (20+ years) been encouraged to put milk cartons in our recycle bin. I didn’t realize there were any issues with them.
Brachiator
Aren’t there also processes that give you liquid milk with a long shelf life?
WaterGirl
@SFAW: I’m probably being dense, but I don’t get it. I assume the 4 from Obama are from the “scandal” that shall not be named. But the 2, also for Obama? And nothing for the others?
Maybe I woke up dumb this morning.
Chyron HR
@Baud:
It’s deeply unfair to blame the Bernie Sanders campaign for the actions of the Bernie Sanders campaign.
EthylEster
@Another Scott: And it takes a lot of milk to make cheese…
I have been to Gruyeres and eaten a fondue there. It’s funny that this cheese is claimed by Switzerland and France. I recall that our after dinner coffee came with cream delivered in a little chocolate cup.
EthylEster
@Kent: They hold the cards.
Sometimes I find your fantasies very hard to take.
WhatsMyNym
@EthylEster: Vital Farms are pastured raised according to their website. They are based in TX and MO, and are supplied by 200 farms so a fairly big operation. I haven’t seen them up here.
Kent
A lot of plastic recycling is largely a scam perpetrated by plastic manufacturers so they can keep producing more plastic. There has been a lot written about this. Most metal recycling is legit. Much plastic recycling is not. Just because they are picking it up curbside doesn’t actually mean it is being productively recycled.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish
https://zerowastechef.com/2019/11/13/recycling-scam/
mrmoshpotato
Kent
The GOP doesn’t hold all the cards. The GOP needs 60 votes in the Senate and passage in the Democratic House to move any relief package forward. In both cases that requires Democratic consent.
The Democrats can absolutely bring any future coronavirus aid package to a halt. They have leverage.
Yes, the Dems aren’t going to get any stand-alone legislation reforming the USPS through the Senate and signed into law. Obviously not. But they can certainly leverage Dem priorities into subsequent aid packages. That is EXACTLY what they were doing most recently when they torpedoed Mitch McConnell’s $250 billion aid package for small business.
If Trump wants to win re-election and if the GOP Senate wants to remain in GOP control they really need to be seen as putting the country back to work and solving the crisis. They know this. They have more to lose than Dems at this point.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mrmoshpotato:
I’ve been wondering who around him will try to explain this to him.
@Kelly: Yup, there’s very little that trump does that isn’t following a path set out by Republicans for the last few decades– voter suppression, racist dog-whistling/hog-calling, immigration demagoguery– he’s just louder, cruder and god help us, more successful in selling it.
EthylEster
@ziggy: The organic standard for eggs undercuts pasture raising. The best eggs are produced by hens that forage outside. That means that the chicken’s diet is not known. I want the hens to eat grass and grubs and other alive outdoor creatures. For eggs to be organic means that free-range is not really possible because being able to certify “no synthetic fertilizers” is very hard (that is, expensive). Particularly if the hens are being moved around big fields like Joel Salatan recommends. I get the idea the Vital Farms folks take the same approach. I like their little hen cartoon inserts in the cartons.
The USDA’s standard:
To qualify as organic, eggs must come from chickens that are fed only organic feed (i.e., feed that is free of animal by-products, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or other chemical additives).
MisterForkbeard
@Kent: On the other hand, Democrats actually care if people suffer or die and can’t delay aid.
Republicans know this. They have the upper hand in most negotiations because they’re sociopathic and they know that we aren’t.
They’ll shoot as many hostages as they have to.
Nora
@WaterGirl: The trick is that 4 deaths from Benghazi is made to look huge, much larger than thousands of deaths from Katrina, 9/11, etc.
WhatsMyNym
@Kent: You need a manufacturer nearby that can use the product. We can now recycle soft plastic bags and films because it can be used at a local plant.
Getting/keeping materials sorted from other waste and to the individual plants is always a big hurdle.
EthylEster
@WhatsMyNym: Vital Farms are pastured raised according to their website. They are based in TX and MO, and are supplied by 200 farms so a fairly big operation. I haven’t seen them up here.
Where’s “up here”?
Yes, their being pasture raised is the important point. I re-read my comment and see that it was ambiguous. I meant that Vital Farms eggs are very like what I used to get from my hens. I like the idea that the eggs are harvested from many smaller farms, not a single huge one.
Kent
@MisterForkbeard: That is exactly why the Democrats need badass leadership. And why politics is tough. Pelosi knows all of this better than we do. But they need the leadership and courage to deploy the leverage that they do have. Elections are only 6 months away.
EthylEster
@Kent: I was talking about milk cartons, not plastic milk jugs, although those are re-cycled in Seattle also.
EthylEster
@MisterForkbeard: They have the upper hand in most negotiations because they’re sociopathic and they know that we aren’t.
Thanks for spelling out the details for Kent.
WhatsMyNym
@EthylEster: Where’s “up here”?
Across from Canada on the Salish Sea. So NW of Seattle. No Fred Meyers here to sell fancy eggs as loss leader. QFC is our Kroger, and they are smaller. The food coop sells from smaller NW producers.
Feathers
You can put ice cream in your coffee if you are out of milk. Just saying. A trick learned from my ever resourceful father.
Another problem with the ship all the milk to the poor and starving of the world. Northern Europeans are the only people who adapted to drinking milk as adults, most of the rest of the world is lactose intolerant. Milk and cheese, it’s how a farming culture survives the winter.
ETA: Also, skim milk freezes. I keep a little 4 oz mason jars or two in the freezer just in case. Also, powdered milk works just fine for baking. I didn’t have powdered buttermilk on hand, and I’m not going to try to get any at this point.
MoCA Ace
Better check your voter registration stat. As long a sits still “D” there is hope.
Kent
So your solution is to just wring your hands and give up, and give the GOP whatever they want because they are sociopaths?
Mary Ellen Sandahl
@scav:
I don’t know to what extent it’s true now, but when I was in the UK in the 80s and 90s, their (very) old traditions of having local, non-supermarket shops in the smaller towns and villages, selling baked goods, meats, fruits and vegs was still in existence. In the country areas delivery trucks from these purveyors would go around to homes outside the central village once a week. You see this referred to all the time in novels and movies – “The butcher’s van came today” etc.
The Brits may have given themselves more completely over to the US-style big-scale food processing and distribution system since I was there. But they still have the advantage of being a much more compact country.
We’re hearing “food deserts” mentioned in relation to the poverty-driven vulnerability to the virus in minority communities or outside the cities. There’s a relationship between all these problems.
germy
Brachiator
@EthylEster:
It’s funny that “organic” is not really natural.
Jay
@Another Scott:
There are cows, and then there are cows.
Grass fed/pastured cows use marginal land, don’t burp much methane, their biowastes fertilize the soil, they don’t require any additional feed or suppliments other than a salt lick.
They are however, slower to produce large volumes of beef or milk and are generally a regional breed adapted through decades of cross breeding to suit local conditions. Both the beef and the milk are low fat.
A large amount of the commercial dairy and beef cattle are industrial farmed, force fed for rapid weight gain or massive milk volume production, and are bred for those qualities alone.
One method is sustainable, but produces a superior product at low volumes that is more expensive.
The other method is unsustainable, requires massive inputs, generates tons of waste, and aided by inputs of rainforest slash/burn cheap meat cattle, produces large volumes of cheap product to the point that beef, once a luxury item/treat, is now a staple of the $1 Menu that far too many workers rely on to feed their families, ( along with school breakfasts and lunches) at least one meal a day.
germy
Trump’s favorite news network:
germy
Another Scott
@Kent: The House passed a bi-partisan bill to fix the USPS pension pre-payment stuff in February. It’s apparently sitting on Moscow Mitch’s desk. The implosion of the service because of COVID-19 is a new issue that needs to be addressed in the Stage IV rescue package.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
@Jay: Grass fed beef may be more environmentally sustainable for a lot of reasons. But the science suggests that the claim they produce less methane is false. Methane production from grass fed cattle may actually be higher than for feed lots because the cattle grow slower and it takes longer to reach market size: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is-grass-fed-beef-really-better-for-the-planet-heres-the-science
I’m not arguing with the rest of your post. It is clearly a more sustainable form of agriculture from the point of view of land use and other factors. I’m just quibbling with the argument about methane production
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I doubt Dump cares if his racist base dies. He knows they’re chumps. They swallowed all his bullshit and voted for him.
Caring for others isn’t in the conman manual.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Dems in DC have a strong hand if Dems in the hustings– in Colorado and Maine and Arizona and Iowa and North Carolina and what the hell Kansas and South Carolina– make their R Senators nervous enough that they talk back to McConnell. Preserving his majority is the only think McConnell cares about. He doesn’t care about trump, he doesn’t care how many people die or are ruined financially. He cares about who replaces, or doesn’t, Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Baud
@germy:
Such language.
Baud
I see Cole is still fighting the fight on Twitter.
James E Powell
@Feathers:
I learned that from my stoner roommate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I almost brought that in here, but in the spirit of Sunday repose and seasonal whatever, I didn’t. Also, I’m supposed to be doing real things away from this keyboard and the couch.
The Powers That Front Page should give us dedicated brawling/venting threads
germy
Today feels so strange. Usually my house is full of people on Easter.
This year it’s just me, my wife, and the cat.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think the Powers want to move on, and I don’t blame them, but I’m not sure other people will make that possible.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: gonna be a long, loud summer, I think
Ksmiami
@MisterForkbeard: and that is why they must be removed and punished to the full extent.
MisterForkbeard
@Kent: We’re telling you that playing chicken with people who don’t care results in unacceptable losses.
Maybe we can get USPS protections in place. Is this worth it to us after tens of thousands of americans die, the economy goes even more bonkers, and many americans go bankrupt? Ongoing for potentially months? All of which gets blamed on the Democrats because they refuse to help people so that lazy government bureaucrats get money?
Because this is how it would go. You don’t roll over, but you also don’t advocate terrible trades or think that just having “badass” leadership is going to solve the problem.
Feathers
@James E Powell: Ha Ha. My dad is the least stoner dude around.
mrmoshpotato
@Feathers:
Extreme Moose Tracks coffee!!!
mrmoshpotato
@Kent:
Let Bessie munch on all the fareways, and poop in all 18 holes.
EthylEster
@Brachiator: It’s funny that “organic” is not really natural.
I’m not laughing.
And how does one define “natural”, not to mention “really natural”?
EthylEster
@Kent: So your solution is to just wring your hands and give up, and give the GOP whatever they want because they are sociopaths?
Are you familiar with the term “false dichotomy”?
Jay
@Kent:
18% less gas emissions from pasturage and grassfed beef.
That however is measured on “artificial” pasturage.
Most of the native meadows and grasslands were plowed under decades ago and replanted with invasives and other grasses that produced “greater yeilds” when simply measured in terms of “tons of beef” and “gallons of milk”. Much of the grasslands and pasturage in Western Farming is basically a monocrop.
University of Saskatechewan trials 10 years ago utilizing restored native grasslands and meadows, along with “enhanced” grasslands and pasturage, (herbs, non-native flowering plants added to monocrop pasturage and grasslands to increase diversity) produced “net zero” emission cows.
other herd management techniques also produce similar results.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/civileats.com/2018/04/10/can-responsible-grazing-make-beef-climate-neutral/amp/
The ugly reality is that for most of the world, for most of history, ( since we shifted from hunter/gatherers/nomadic herders to farmers) animal proteins were never “cheap”, and came with a variety of additional costs.
Industrial farming and fishing has made animal proteins cheap, cheaper than dirt, and at great costs, ( health, environment, social justice, working conditions).
EthylEster
@WhatsMyNym: Across from Canada on the Salish Sea.
Nice place. I have a cousin on Vancouver Island and friends on Gabriola Island. It is so beautiful there.
I am a bit surprised that QFC doesn’t carry Vital Farms. When I check out the egg place in grocery stores, I am always surprised at how many choices they have and how much bogus PR is involved…enhanced omega-3s, naturally nested.
For me the yolk tells. If it is yellow instead of orange, I’m not interested. I’ve stopped eating eggs when I go out to breakfast.
I miss the Cup playoffs. There would be a game everyday now but for the virus.
chopper
@debbie:
gm is switching to make ventilators, sure, but it’s gonna take 6 months to a year. if they decided to switch to making evaporated milk it would do nothing for dairy farmers today, or this month, or any time soon.
ziggy
@EthylEster: I get your point about “organic” becoming expensive, overblown and sometimes unobtainable. And “natural” has become basically a meaningless word. Vital Farms does produce organic pastured eggs, not sure how that works. What makes me laugh is the “vegetarian fed” chicken eggs–if they saw the things my hens eat, they are not vegetarian by a long shot.
I do appreciate that they are fed an organic feed, because I have a chronic nerve condition and don’t want to add more pesticides than necessary.
ziggy
Exactly! Why aren’t golf fairways used for livestock, instead of constant mowing and fertilizing? It would make the game a LOT more interesting!
Kent
All I am saying is that the Dem leadership should do their very best to keep their caucus united and push for everything they can get in these “must pass” bail-out measures. Mostly we are talking about GOP-friendly small business relief measures at this point that they desperately want to pass.
I entirely disagree with the notion that Dems should negotiate with themselves and water down their proposals because “the GOP is full of sociopaths”. I entirely expect that Trump will cave on the USPS. There are two houses of Congress and spending bills are supposed to originate in the House anyway, not in McConnell’s private chambers.
Most of what they are arguing about now is business relief, not food aid or unemployment for individuals. Dems have tremendous leverage.
joel hanes
@Jay:
Dead thread, but regardless of what they eat, cattle are a complete disaster for water quality in any stream that they can reach. Almost no cattle raising operations fence their cattle off the streams that run off their property. Downstream of cattle, streams are green, stinking, anoxic.