Jeanne has been a top notch advocate for the National Dairy Producers Organization over the past few months, and boy does she know how to stand up for what she believes in. She is a 'friend' of the National Dairy Producers Organzition on Facebook and I have posted a response of hers below.
Why not, there is not too many of us left and we better start working together with all the other farmers we can to get control of this thing or you might not have 80 bucks to buy toilet paper. Besides I bet you spent 80 bucks on something far more ludicris. For the first time in history when there are people who would work with us we just shoot them down. We really need to get over this behavior as it is what got us here in the first place. Pitting us against each other!
Here in the midwest we have always played the "bad other farmers" card. Those bad New York dairy farmers and their compacts, those bad California farmers and their low costs of production, and of course poor us having to be only 60 miles from Eau Claire WI, so we REALLY got the shaft. In the June 2010 issue of Agribusiness Dairyman, Doug Maddox a longtime California dairy producer says, (and I thought this was the most revealing to me) "Not one time in 50 years of talking 'management' did we EVER talk about PRICE! How to make more milk. All I wanted to do is breed better cows and make more milk and that is what we've done!" You know why? Because we(all of us dairy producers) were convinced that we were the best. We have the best cows, the best tests, we are the most efficient. We will survive when all the rest are forced out. Well, now it is us. Every bleepin one of us.
It doesn't matter if we milk 20 cows or 20,000 cows we have to have a fair price at the farm gate. Big shots or little shots, we have to make a profit. I have worked with every major farm organization in the US over the last 40 years. Holding leadership positions and working my tail off trying to figure out why farmers will not fight for the best way of life, ever. During that time there were very few agribusinesses that would get behind us. Now they are because SCHOCK!!! They are going to go under too if they don't work with us. Why is that such a bad thing?
Why are we not holding our processors and co-ops and government to the same scrutiny as god forbid an "advertising agency" that is actually putting their money and their time where OUR mouths should be! Crap, if farmers would do it, we wouldn't have to rely on outside help. My experience has been farmers just do a lot of whining and blaming and very little acting on their own behalf. Time to get on board! You can always write the 80 bucks off.
Isn't she amazing?!?!?
Please join our Facebook page. Go to http://www.nationaldairyproducers.org/ and click the link on the home page.
Thanks 'Grandma' Jeanne for all the work you are doing. We need 50,000 more people just like you!!
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