4 ms·

Dairy is facing strong headwinds given that americans consume 93 less gallons of dairy per person less than they did in the 1980s. Just not enough people consu

Dairy is facing strong headwinds given that americans consume 93 less gallons of dairy per person less than they did in the 1980s. Just not enough people consuming dairy to justify such a huge industry

hshshshshss 7y ago
good
ryannevius 7y ago
I can't comment on per capita consumption in 1980, but this data[1] seems to suggest that Americans are actually consuming _more_ dairy products per capita than in the year 2000 – 643 pounds per year in 2017 vs 591 pounds in 2000. [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/dairy-data/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/dairy-data/
- jelliclesfarm 7y ago
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/dairy-farming-is-dying-after-40-years-im-out/2018/12/21/79cd63e4-0314-11e9-b6a9-0aa5c2fcc9e4_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/dairy-farming-is-dyin... : this is a good read from a dairy farmer who quit/retired ...it gives some perspective. From 2017: oversupply and plummeting prices https://www.marketwatch.com/story/got-milk-too-much-of-it-say-us-dairy-farmers-2017-05-21 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/got-milk-too-much-of-it-sa... ...in Ag, it’s not always a good thing to be over productive especially if there are subsidies in place. Price controls and free market throttling will always be suicidal. Not just for dairy..also true for other commodity crops.
daemin 7y ago
Maybe it's because I've been playing "Surviving Mars" recently, but I can't help to think that the answer to the dairy industry is to find a new market on Mars. Realistically milk is something that won't be produced on that planet for a very long time, so exporting cheese would be big business.
- mcv 7y ago
  I guess we need to colonise Mars to create a market there, then. Finally an economic reason to go there.
thrower123 7y ago
I would suspect, that if you are looking at per-capita consumption, a large factor would simply be that the proportion of the population that is adapted to consume dairy products has shrunk. Drinking milk is, in some ways, kind of a weird accident, and the genes responsible for making that possible are clustered in a few different regions. An increasing share of immigration and population growth in the intervening decades has come from populations where those genes are rarer.
- notfromhere 7y ago
  that population only declined proportionally, not numerically. so if consumption didn't drop, you'd have the exact number of dairy farms as before
m463 7y ago
I've found out over time that dairy just isn't that good for you. It's not well known that dairy is one of the most common allergies. Also a lot of people have lactose intolerance (not the same as allergy) I remember talking to a doctor (maybe 30 years ago) and he said something to the effect of "someday soon it's going to come out that dairy is implicated in a lot of health issues like diabetes, etc" However I haven't seen it really come out. Highly processed carbs aren't great either, but they're easier to grow, process, store and distrubute so ...

hshshshshss 7y ago

good

ryannevius 7y ago

I can't comment on per capita consumption in 1980, but this data[1] seems to suggest that Americans are actually consuming _more_ dairy products per capita than in the year 2000 – 643 pounds per year in 2017 vs 591 pounds in 2000. [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/dairy-data/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/dairy-data/

jelliclesfarm 7y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/dairy-farming-is-dying-after-40-years-im-out/2018/12/21/79cd63e4-0314-11e9-b6a9-0aa5c2fcc9e4_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/dairy-farming-is-dyin... : this is a good read from a dairy farmer who quit/retired ...it gives some perspective. From 2017: oversupply and plummeting prices https://www.marketwatch.com/story/got-milk-too-much-of-it-say-us-dairy-farmers-2017-05-21 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/got-milk-too-much-of-it-sa... ...in Ag, it’s not always a good thing to be over productive especially if there are subsidies in place. Price controls and free market throttling will always be suicidal. Not just for dairy..also true for other commodity crops.

daemin 7y ago

Maybe it's because I've been playing "Surviving Mars" recently, but I can't help to think that the answer to the dairy industry is to find a new market on Mars. Realistically milk is something that won't be produced on that planet for a very long time, so exporting cheese would be big business.

mcv 7y ago
I guess we need to colonise Mars to create a market there, then. Finally an economic reason to go there.

thrower123 7y ago

I would suspect, that if you are looking at per-capita consumption, a large factor would simply be that the proportion of the population that is adapted to consume dairy products has shrunk. Drinking milk is, in some ways, kind of a weird accident, and the genes responsible for making that possible are clustered in a few different regions. An increasing share of immigration and population growth in the intervening decades has come from populations where those genes are rarer.

notfromhere 7y ago
that population only declined proportionally, not numerically. so if consumption didn't drop, you'd have the exact number of dairy farms as before

m463 7y ago

I've found out over time that dairy just isn't that good for you. It's not well known that dairy is one of the most common allergies. Also a lot of people have lactose intolerance (not the same as allergy) I remember talking to a doctor (maybe 30 years ago) and he said something to the effect of "someday soon it's going to come out that dairy is implicated in a lot of health issues like diabetes, etc" However I haven't seen it really come out. Highly processed carbs aren't great either, but they're easier to grow, process, store and distrubute so ...