Dairy farmers dumping milk amid COVID-19: Pandemic's impact on the dairy industry

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'The biggest buyer of fluid milk in the United States is the National School Lunch Program. Those buyers just aren't out there.'

Owner Richard Azevedo steps over the hose of a milk bulk tank as the milk is dumped down the drain, April 8, 2020, at the Azevedo Family Dairy in Buhl, Idaho. With restaurants across the country closed, milk processors have lost a significant chunk of their market, leaving dairy farmers with no one to take their milk.

"Dairy farmers can't keep the milk and so they're dumping it because, they've invested so much money to produce it already, Money and labor and goods to get it done, that they can't sell it," said Samuelson."The biggest buyer of fluid milk in the United States is the National School Lunch Program. Those buyers just aren't out there."Wisconsin farmers have been among those forced to dump milk.

"Our farm in particular has not had to dump, not yet," said Hildebrandt."But, that's something that we're well aware of may come in the future." Milk pours out of the bulk tank and into the drain, April 8, 2020, at the Azevedo Family Dairy, in Buhl, Idaho. Owner Richard Azevedo says 4,100 gallons of milk were dumped that morning. With restaurants across the country closed, milk processors have lost a significant chunk of their market, leaving dairy farmers with no one to take their milk.Her day-to-day operations have changed little, and the farms continue to operate with a full staff, but she said the farm is a little quieter these days.

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This is sickening

a sadness and lack of intelligence because they do not bottle that product and donate it to people with few resources or in food banks, in north carolina chicken meat packers park on the side of the road and give that product away🙄

This is disgusting. If they’re gonna have losses anyway, WHY NOT GIVING IT TO LOW INCOME COMMUNITIES?!?!?

Sad to see this, shouldn't throw it why be greedy give it away.

Peharps people don't wish to support a barbaric industry that keeps cows perpetually pregnant, sells off their babies to be slaughtered as veal, just to provide milk products that were falsely marketed as the only way consumers could get calcium & vitamin D.

Oil companies may start doing the same...🤷🏻‍♂️

But we need the milk.. the kids are still out there

Waste

Why not donate it?!

The farmers need to start turning this into powdered milk and packaging it dry. Stop wasting food!

All these comments 🙄 people dairy farmer are not bottlers. They don’t have empty bottles sitting around they can fill up. Raw milk has to be PROCESSED AND PACKAGED per USDA guidelines. Packagers aren’t donating their time and resources to bottle it. U R mad at the wrong people.

To me that might be lie, because my kids bring home every day 2 carton of milk so that total of 16 for the week

WCKitchen is feeding people all over the world and in the United States. I'm sure they could use it. What else could we use this milk for?

Give it to those that need it!! Food banks, homeless shelters etc etc...

Why are we paying $1.00 more a gallon lately?

My vote goes to letting baby cows have it like nature intended.

Is this the same program the Trump administration has been fighting in court to reduce nutritional standards.?

😢

I just can’t understand this dumping of milk and food... it can’t be given to in-need people in the town or neighboring towns of the companies that process it all?

Duh, dairy farmers should read the market more. Before pandemic, people are already drinking less milk. Stop over producing products no one want

Shameful! Donate it!

No human should be drinking cows milk. This 19th century practice is cruel and unnecessary. The Dairy lobby is powerful, that’s the only reason milk is a school lunch requirement. coronavirus

Shame

KMBZradio This makes it look like farmers are being greedy by not giving it away. If they had a way to give it away they would. The food packagers are raising the prices on everything. That’s who needs to be donating their services and the product.

We’re not supposed to be drinking that anyway

getyergoats Reading the comments on here irk me at how ignorant people continue to be.

Why not make cheese or butter out of it?

Greed causes them to throw it away instead of giving it away. Sad.

Just Powder the milk and send it to Sub Sahara. We know how to make high quality products from milk formulae. Or may it has some added products for use by ONLY certain cadre of USA CITIZENS secret Nature. Who knows.Hope not. Send us the Milk for heaven's sake less Covid-19 !

Fill your jugs and give it away to hungry families!

Please provide this milk to the massive numbers of free lunch students in this country!

Is it the, “dairy farmers,” or a couple of giant milk-producing conglomerates? Because I thought the small dairy farms had all but gone out of business?

But we still have children needing their milk! So it's always about the $$$. And did the program just stop? Bureaucratic wheels don't stop that fast.

why not let their babies have the milk their mothers make for them? oh wait, they are on the school lunch program...

Why don’t they sell it to the grocery stores They often sell out of milk! The children that were in school drinking that milk are now at home and still need milk! Duh! Double Duh!

That is criminal.

Why is the government not buying this milk?

Performance of government incompetence

Why not give the families picking up free lunch a gallon of milk instead of the single serve size? We waste too much in this country.

Good, its cancerous anyways 🤷🏾‍♂🤷🏾‍♂🤷🏾‍♂

🇺🇸 has been land of plenty. Never learned to conserve . World, now parts of nation going Hungary. 👍👍👍 yup this is the right decision. They can still bottle n ship using bailout 💰💰💰💰to all centers to needy locations. ♥️🌺wow!!

Instead of dumping it why not ask the state to assist in getting it shipped to people including children who need it.

Good, break free from the government. This is a positive

send it to people who are hungry and homeless dont please throw it all away

NephiLaxmus Kejadian jg di amrik ya , mbak NMoekijat ? 😟

So the taxpayers have given billions upon billions to dairy farmers and they do what in return? End the subsidizes!

I am sure Milk can be made to other consumption products. It is so wasteful in this time where people in America are struggling to feed themselves.

The dairy farmers can easily donate milk to the many food pantries across the USA.

Hungry people could use this. If they are going to throw milk away then just give it away. This is so wrong.

The only good milk is cheese.

Instead of dumping it, why not donate it to local food banks? Some school systems are still offering at least breakfast or lunch.

Instead of bottling and sharing! waste forprofit sad

No reason to flush down the drain. Super rich humanitarians like Gates, Bloomberg, Steyer & Soros can buy & ship to their favorite foreign nation.

price fixing

So the mantra..'we are in this together' doesn't apply to lg industries that would rather DESTROY a product (to gain insurance & gov bailout subsidies) than donate to schools, shelters, hospitals & food programs? Greed is a far worse illness

genebaur Farmers need to donate food and stop wasting it to make a point.

There has to be someway to save this milk.

Milk is killing people get rid of it, go plant based and their might not be so many sick and obese people

Can easily give that milk to the poor! Or send it to Africa

Wife just told me about a story about a family who can't afford food. How hard can it be to just continue to send the milk to schools, who are distributing food to people in need anyways?

This is asinine! Donate! Make other milk products! DONATE them! F’ing ridiculous

Take it to the malnourished children in Africa

'What do they have to lose?' Nothing because trump will just keep bailing them out.

Dumping usable food has to be one of the worse sins ever.

They’re still feeding children. I don’t understand the difference

Now imagine if stores would cut prices on milk. In some places in FLORIDA, we are paying almost $4 a gallon with is absolutely ridiculous.

It should be donated, this is an obvious lie most school systems are still buying milk in many cases they are buying more milk, because they are providing free breakfast and lunch to any child.

This pandemic impact all over the world's milking Industry COVIDIOT

To throw food away while kids are hungry is a national failure. Feds have the wherewithal to move food just no will no plan we do have a clown

Medicated teat juice harvested amidst unimaginable cruelty and subsidized by billions of tax payer dollars causing obesity and ill health. The quintessential American enterprise.

We need to figure out a way to quickly switch distribution & packaging from industrial (big biz) to commercial (families). Or maybe make a shit ton of cheese. IDK

You can thank the demonrats!!!

Dairy consumption has been dropping for years, maybe now is a good time to get off it?

It costs money for the farmers to deliver it so perhaps volunteers can pick it up? Can the cows drink milk ? lol

This seems drastic, they should be able to figure out what to do with the milk besides destroying it. Why not do old fashioned home deliveries?

HousatonicITS Can you freeze milk? Sad to waste it

Now we are just wasting food...😬

I have three boys in my house, we go through 4 gallons of milk (at least) in a week. I CAN help these people

Milk is terrible for you...not good for the liver...drink all natural almond milk, cashew milk, or water.

I think I know the answer in advance but I hope the United States is preparing for tough times ahead. Why is milk being trashed? - powder it for the future. Government cheese may be something America needs again. We should be stocking and saving just in case things get worse.

These milk can be sent to Americans who are in need as well as other people in Latin America and the rest of the world.

I just don’t get it. There are people out there starving and they are throwing milk down the drain. There has to be a better way !

They are dumping it? So instead of giving it away to people who are poor in need just throw it away....?

Get their asses back to school

Can’t the government work something out to ship it to food banks & charities?

They could give it away to families

So instead of dumping the milk - did anyone call food banks and donate? Nah .... this way you can get a government bail out and take in millions more in insurance.

But all these schools that closed are still providing lunches to the kids don't they still need milk? What about the recent rush on food banks they certainly could use the milk. Donate it, it is a tax write off.

What a waste

Can shove it down our kids throats right now.

This is serious

Why not donate the milk to a food pantry? And the school department here is still handing out breakfast and lunches daily .....I can’t accept such waste when people are struggling to feed their families

Then why are grocery stores out of milk?

I drink almond milk anyway. 🤷🏽‍♂️

So rather to donate it, they rather throw it away, yeah America is great ,for the rich that is!!!

Poor people could use that milk for there family ,this makes me sick.

Donate unsold food to food pantries for the hungry and low income. Damn people, use your brains.

Criminal! All the babies that need that right now, they should go to jail, how do they sleep at night? And then Trump will bail them out again with millions.

Donate it

Honestly, so much of that lunch milk is wasted anyways. It’s givin to the kids who usually throw it away. It’s not needed, but schools are required to buy it. It’s a boondoggle for the milk lobbyists.

So why not Donate the mile to those food banks ? Food pantries ? To shelters ? To people struggling instead of Dumping the milk ?

That is a sin!

If we had a Federal gov't that was effective, they would buy milk & crops and feed those who are in need.

Perfect illustration of why it’s bad to become too dependent on the government.

Can someone explain what “fluid milk” is? Yuck! I wouldn’t want my kid drinking that.

So stop torturing dairy cows and murdering their calves!! GoVegan

i dont understand why they didn't make dried milk out of it. You know how expensive dried milk is. I make yogurt out of dried milk. its expensive.

“We need to have an honest public discussion on how to produce our food. Individually, we must stop eating animal products. Collectively, we must transform the global food system and work toward ending animal agriculture and rewilding much of the world.”

Holy cow (no pun intended) but GIVE THE MILK AWAY TO FOOD BANKS AND OTHERS WHO NEED IT AND CAN USE IT NOW...this is so unnecessary

Why don't they give it to pantries.They would get a tax credit.

This is silly, why waste it? I can find only half gallons in my area. Why not partner with others and redistribute where there are shortages. What a waste.

Donate it!

Why not make something longer lasting, sell it locally or ship abroad OMG! Wastage!

kuku27 Make butter, cheese and donate or sell at cost to needy countries.This is not a problem

Sad to see this

Send the milk to the homeless, to needy families, ...don't waste it!

Why aren’t they giving it away to families in need? What a waste!

jerryzpark My son ran out of milk for a while..

matange2 I don't suppose we could turn that into Powdered Milk, could we In the most technologically advanced country in the world?

School should not serve milk to children.

Don't they know about powder milk? Then donate to world food program

Because there's no women shelters, homeless shelters, kids food programs, etc etc that they could donate the milk too? RealKurtAngle will be sooooo pissed!

If they’re just gonna dump it, why can’t they give it to a food bank or homeless?

Glad you reported this story. FDR began buying milk just after he took office in 1932. In 1930 one person was starving to death every seven hours in the United States. Hoover stated the hungry go to the charities for food. FDR created commodities

Children still need to eat whether it’s at school or at home. This is so sad to see this.

It's the same in Japan.

Why are they buying milk,?

FFS!!!! There are hungry children in this country and milk is getting dumped. Chickens are getting euthanized because the demand is too low. But this is the greatest country in the world? Why can’t we get the supply over to where the need is right now?

I have an empty gallon I can bring

Milk is gross. Terrible for human consumption. Fact

Evil,pure evil, there's hunger

please don’t dump... send it to the shelters... collaborate and team up with major ice cream & sweets manufacturers/distributors to step up and help utilize and feed who need... benandjerrys Costco WholeFoods try doing something really really meaningful & out of the box:)

They cld ship milk 2 hundreds of food banks acr country. They’re not making any $$ on it anyway. It’s criminal 2 dump so much when ppl r going hungry. If they don’t have spare margin 2 pay 4 shipping they cld go online & ask 4 help. They’d prob have free shipping by end of day.

If we had a President that cared the milk could be bought and distributed to the schools to include in their free lunches. This is a crime, of negligence, in itself. Trump will turn around and pay the farmers for pouring the milk out. Such stupidity is overwhelming!

Local news said this wasn’t happening, so one of y’all is fake news! FakeNews

so they do this every summer, when school is out?

They should make mozzarella

Fly in military cargo planes and move products.

Yet stores are limiting milk purchases

So give it to homeless shelters? Wtf

What about food banks...retirement homes?

U know u could give it away

why isn't milk simply purchased by gov. Agency and given to the needy?

Are they offering it to those families in line waiting for food. Bet they could benefit from it. Where is the connection?

Make yogurt, cottage cheese, ice cream, cream cheese

It should be donated.

This is heartbreaking.

I used to be a huge milk drinker, my favorite was buttermilk. Ever since I made the switch to breast milk I cant go back. Humans werent meant to drink from other animals only ourselves. Keeping my wifes yields high has been a challenge but the bovine hormones still work okay.

This reminds me of myself after a good 65 minutes.... Ladies?

Put some moms in there and let them make something with the milk instead of dumping it good lord!

Farmers can't sell or give away raw milk. Federal regulations. And if tankers have no place to take it for processing because there aren’t any customers (or a fraction of what they had), they aren’t going to take any from the farmer. And you can’t just turn dairy cows off and on

NaijaFlyingDr During a conversation with some friends, I told them that America will be the first empire in history to get destroyed by it's own effort. Capitalism will be the rise and fall of America. This milk can feed the poor. But no, they rather waste it than give it out free.

No. There is no need for this. There is demand, what we need is national coordination and maybe additional filtering to give a longer shelve life..but we shouldn’t have to plow fields of food iunder, dump milk, etc. people are hungry here.

NaijaFlyingDr Cow milk is not good for children

HEY! Why are you wasting milk when I struggle to buy it in the grocery store?

These same producers will ask for subsidies. Why not just have the gov buy the milk and give it to people who’d otherwise have to pay for it? Maybe freeing up money for them to buy other stuff?

Sad.

Children are going hungry. Mass Media Hysteria pumping debunked death predictions - for ratings. WH 'experts' have literally stated numbers were wrong but the disconnect between narrative and numbers does not seem to matter. .1/.3 death rate is a bad horrible flu

As good time as any to reassess the enormous children's consumption of cow milk. It's not a law of nature. In fact, we're the only species to breastfeed (albeit indirectly) from a different species.

Cows milk is for baby COWS

Why isn't the milk in the food lines for those in need. Seems they have a lot of kids that could use it.

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