I recently came across this disturbing article in the New York Times.

Sometime after finishing the morning milking, Mr. Pierson, 59, a dairy farmer who grew up on High Low Farm on Weed Mine Road in Columbia County [NY], which his father bought when he was an infant, did something no one will ever entirely explain. He took a small-caliber rifle and went through the barn he built about a decade ago methodically shooting all 51 of his milking cows in the head.

He left a note on the front door that warned the reader not to go inside but to call the police. Then he sat down in a chair and killed himself with a single rifle shot to the chest. He left behind a short suicide note scrawled on scratch paper that made reference to his depression over personal and financial issues. He expressed his love for his family but said he was “overwhelmed.”

The story is about a month old and was picked up by Huffington Post as well.

Something’s wrong when a guy who’s been working hard 15-hour days, everyday for nearly 60 years, loses his spirit. Something is terribly wrong. Why did he just give up? Why couldn’t he make a go of it? Is it the way the dairy “industry” works?

Wholesale milk is bought and sold in hundred pounds units. The industry standard weight for one gallon of milk is 8.6 pounds. There are 11.62 gallons of milk in 100 pounds. So, if wholesale milk is priced at say, $20 cwt, that works out to $1.72 per gallon. Here are some figures from the Farm Prices Received report for February issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Friday, February 26, 2010:

• February 2010: $15.90 cwt. (1.37/gal)
• January 2010: $16.10 cwt. ($1.39/gal)
• February 2009: $11.60 cwt. ($1.00/gal)

At these prices, the cost of production (about $1.55/gallon in the northeast) exceeds the sale price. Dairy farmers are literally paying for the privilege of being dairy farmers. Commodity milk isn’t about fair trade. It’s about making more money for people who already have lots of money.

The effect of driving down the price of milk is that dairy farmers who supply the commercial operations have to constantly reduce costs. At some point, it comes down to the safety or nutritional value of the milk product. At other times it comes down to the health and well-being of the farmer. If we lose our ability to sustain farmers in this country, we forfeit our right to specify food safety. The USDA has no control over foreign countries except veto power. What if the importable sources become unacceptable or too expensive, once we have no sources of our own? The folks on the ends, the farmer and the consumer, lose.

What should milk cost?

Pasteurized milk in my local Stop & Shop today is

• $3.60/gallon
• $2.20/half gallon
• $2.80/half gallon for the Connecticut Farmer’s Cow brand

I pay about $9 a gallon for raw milk (it’s $5 for a half gallon). I figure that’s what it takes to maintain the cows in a healthy manner, properly staff the operation, and comply with regulations to ensure the milk is safe. At the same store I buy my raw milk, there are also these pasteurized brands:

• Arethusa for $4.58 a half gallon
• Organic Valley for $4.19 a half gallon

I understand about family budgets, these trying economic times, and that not everyone is willing to pay $9 a gallon for milk. I realize I don’t have several  growing children drinking gallons a day. On the other hand, $3.60 a gallon seems rather low, considering the nutritional value. Particularly when:

• one liter of Pepsi cola is $1.79
• a 12 oz bag of Doritos Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chips is $3.99
• a 10 oz package of Oreos is $2.99 (on sale)

Something’s wrong with the the food system

Still, a man took his own life and took his 51 cows with him because he was “overwhelmed.”

It is legal to sell raw milk on the farm in NY. Pierson’s farm in Columbia county is about 100 miles north of NYC. Perhaps way up there in a town of about 3ooo residents, on-farm sales don’t generate the kind of traffic that they do here in Fairfield County, CT. Perhaps being allowed to sell raw milk in retail markets would have helped. I don’t know. Granted, I didn’t research this as deeply as possible and I don’t understand milk futures…