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Good news for Nick re: virus

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Merle Lefkoff-2

Good news for Nick re: virus

Dairy producers are dumping thousands of gallons of milk every day. In Wisconsin, 50% of the state’s dairy products have nowhere to go while typical buyers such as schools and restaurants remain shut down and unable to purchase milk and cheese.

In Pennsylvania, where schools buy up to 40% of dairy sales by volume, the pandemic has beleaguered an already-stressed industry that lost 470 farms in 2019. Some large dairies have started donating milk directly to food banks rather than dumping it, but this has taken months to happen with the help of nonprofit intermediaries. Such arrangements are patches, not systemic fixes for gaps in a brittle supply chain.

Supermarkets can’t sell all the milk

Milk waste and donations are signs that supply chains lack resilience—the ability to bounce back from stresses, the way a rubber band returns to its normal shape after being stretched. Milk dumping is more a reflection of broken supply chains than of trends in supply or demand. The fact that the U.S. has too much milk for some places and too little for others highlights weaknesses of conventional food supply chains amid shocks such as COVID-19.

One farm, one economy

How can this system be rewired to make it more adaptable?

Here in New Jersey, farms are the fourth-smallest in the United States, averaging 76 acres. The Garden State’s dairy sector is particularly small, making up only 50 farms and ranking 44th of 50 states in total milk production. But despite their small operations, we see New Jersey’s local entrepreneurial farmers as models of a game-changing strategy.

Rather than selling their milk to large dairy processing companies, these vertically structured local farms raise cows, process milk and other foods, and sell them directly to consumers at farm-operated markets and restaurants. Unsold items return to farms as feed or fertilizer.

This system is highly efficient, even during the current pandemic, because farmers and their customers represent the entire supply chain. Customer demand for locally produced food is surging throughout New Jersey and the United States.

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

[hidden email]
mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff

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Gary Schiltz-4

Re: Good news for Nick re: virus

Now that I've lived in Ecuador for over a decade, it seems strange to think of buying milk in liquid form, especially that which can spoil quickly. Here, the main form of milk that the consumer sees is packaged in one-liter boxes (like wine is increasingly sold worldwide), and it is not refrigerated and has a shelf life of about six months. Equally common is dehydrated milk, which must have a shelf life of over a year. I don't know if the American model is more or less efficient, since the tradeoff in refrigeration and space costs in the supermarkets doesn't incur the costs associated with dehydration. But the supply chain must be much less resilient.

On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 11:28 AM Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dairy producers are dumping thousands of gallons of milk every day. In Wisconsin, 50% of the state’s dairy products have nowhere to go while typical buyers such as schools and restaurants remain shut down and unable to purchase milk and cheese.

In Pennsylvania, where schools buy up to 40% of dairy sales by volume, the pandemic has beleaguered an already-stressed industry that lost 470 farms in 2019. Some large dairies have started donating milk directly to food banks rather than dumping it, but this has taken months to happen with the help of nonprofit intermediaries. Such arrangements are patches, not systemic fixes for gaps in a brittle supply chain.

Supermarkets can’t sell all the milk

Milk waste and donations are signs that supply chains lack resilience—the ability to bounce back from stresses, the way a rubber band returns to its normal shape after being stretched. Milk dumping is more a reflection of broken supply chains than of trends in supply or demand. The fact that the U.S. has too much milk for some places and too little for others highlights weaknesses of conventional food supply chains amid shocks such as COVID-19.

One farm, one economy

How can this system be rewired to make it more adaptable?

Here in New Jersey, farms are the fourth-smallest in the United States, averaging 76 acres. The Garden State’s dairy sector is particularly small, making up only 50 farms and ranking 44th of 50 states in total milk production. But despite their small operations, we see New Jersey’s local entrepreneurial farmers as models of a game-changing strategy.

Rather than selling their milk to large dairy processing companies, these vertically structured local farms raise cows, process milk and other foods, and sell them directly to consumers at farm-operated markets and restaurants. Unsold items return to farms as feed or fertilizer.

This system is highly efficient, even during the current pandemic, because farmers and their customers represent the entire supply chain. Customer demand for locally produced food is surging throughout New Jersey and the United States.

--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2
twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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