Trump administration plans $15.5B in initial farm aid amid COVID-19
Agricultural economist and dairy farmer Damian Mason offers insight.
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America's food supply chain is not set up to get milk from dairy farmers to food banks, agricultural economist and dairy farmer Damian Mason stated Thursday.
Appearing on "Fox & Friends" with host Steve Doocy, Mason explained that the system is far more complex than most Americans realize.
"My farms in Indiana grow forage crops -- alfalfa and corn -- for a dairy operation. And, that dairy operator is hurting right now -- as are dairy farmers throughout the United States of America."
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In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, dairy farmers have been forced to dump thousands of gallons of milk due to an extreme drop in demand from now-shuttered schools, restaurants, and other foodservice providers.
The abrupt shift in demand means that dairy farms across the country have an excess of milk because farmers cannot stop milking their cows.
The Coronavirus pandemic has forced dairy farmers across the U.S. to dump their milk as sales have taken a huge hit. Craig Caballero’s Dairy farm in Eloy, AZ had to dump their milk last week (Caballero Dairy).
According to the Dairy Farmers of America co-op, between 2.7 million and 3.7 million gallons of US milk could be dumped per day as a result of the health crisis.
"[Dairy farmers are] already slogging through a slow industry with low milk prices and then you've got the capacity issue right now," Mason remarked. "So, Steve, we've got a real issue with that bottleneck."
Mason told Doocy that farmers can't simply send milk to a food bank, as some have suggested in recent weeks amid surging demand from the millions of Americans who have lost their incomes.
"There is no food bank in the United States of America that can receive an 8,000-gallon tanker truck of raw milk. I mean, it's not even legal to sell raw milk in most states, let alone who could process or package that?" he continued.
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"So, the dairy farms are suffering because of the flow in the middle. A plant that's set up to process 25-pound bags of mozzarella cheese can't switch over like that and start bottling milk to give it to homeless shelters or food banks," Mason concluded. "I mean, it's a really complex food system that a lot of folks just don't understand."