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Small farms like your aren't commercially viable for much longer (they already aren't in Europe, I'm not very familiar with the US situation, but I have no reas
by roel_v 8y ago
Small farms like your aren't commercially viable for much longer (they already aren't in Europe, I'm not very familiar with the US situation, but I have no reason to believe it's different in the medium term). The constraining factor on milk production in Europe isn't land or capital or stock, it's 'nitrate rights', essentially the amount of nitrates you can put into the soil (top soil is already nitrate saturated so any additional leaches into the ground water). Any measure that reduces the amount of nitrates are a net productivity gain.
I did nitrate leaching/ground water hydrology modeling for New Zealand some 10 years ago, and even then there too dairying was starting to become constrained by its nitrate leaching effects (of course, there needs to be the political will to enforce the boundaries when safe cumulative groundwater nitrate levels are reached at downstream points, but that's a different matter). My point is, it's not just Europe.
As to your other comments in this thread about using other breeds, sure that's fine for small biological/organic farms, but not for large scale commercial operations. Milk production is just too low, and any energy the cow has to put into keeping warm doesn't go into producing milk. On top of that, modern breeds (the only ones that can keep up, production wise) are too weak to be outside this much. Of course there are ethical concerns with this, similar to people breeding dogs for example, but that's a concern at a different abstraction level than that of the individual farmer.
- naravara 8y ago>Small farms like your aren't commercially viable for much longer I think we’re probably just a decade or so away from having lab grown or “impossible burger” style fake meats able to compete with factory farming on price. They won’t be good enough to replace actual butcher shop meat, but they’ll definitely be able to replace generic taco meat type stuff. When there is a viable alternative we might see animal welfare laws gain more traction. Perhaps actual meat will increasingly become a luxury product for special occasions, improving margins and encouraging producers to compete on quality (and ethics) instead of racing to the bottom on price. I’m less sure how that will apply to milk and dairy though.
- roel_v 8y ago"I think we’re probably just a decade or so away from having lab grown or “impossible burger” style fake meats able to compete with factory farming on price." I hope so. "I’m less sure how that will apply to milk and dairy though." I hope someone, at some point, will be able to take an udder, hook it up to an artificial source of nutrients, and have the milk robot come by once a day without any further living creatures being involved. Pure science fiction right now, and if we can hook an udder up to an artificial nutrient source then why wouldn't we be able to do the same to a human brain at which point the whole need for dairy would be moot, but hey...
- toper-centage 8y agoMeat is highly subsidised. If it wasn't cheap lab meat would be here in 2 or 3 years. It's crazy to think that I have to pay for meat, whether I eat it or not.
- tlavoie 8y agoI live in a place where people think about things like food security. It's an island, where most people are on the next, larger island, which itself gets supplies from the mainland. If you have the room, and time, there's a certain comfort in having your own goats from which you can get milk (and cheeeeeeese), and if you're so inclined, meat. There are strong legal constraints against any form of commercial dairy that aren't integrated into the quota system, with crazy high fines. It's not even a food safety thing (e.g. pasteurization), but it means that quite a few people retain the means of production for at least personal use.