USA boeren ook in problemen door lage melkprijs

In Amerika is de melkprijs nu zo laag dat zelfs countryzanger “Willie Nelson” een publieke actie is begonnen (zie hieronder). Ik las het en dacht direct: eigen schuld dikke bult! Dit is namelijk de keerzijde van de door Amerika jarenlang gepromote/afgedwongen globalisering en het openstellen van alle wereldmarkten. Wel een vrije wereldmarkt om goedkope grondstoffen uit het buitenland te halen maar niet de concequentie accepteren: namelijk enorme prijsschommelingen en een asociaal systeem van voedselproductie wat misschien werkt voor DVDspelers maar mijnsinziens absoluut niet past bij voedselproductie. Gewoon een fatsoenlijk en sociaal landbouwbeleid maken denk ik dan! Hoe moeilijk is het? De enige die hier beter van worden zijn de multinationals, de derde werled wordt er echt niet beter van (sorry maar dat geloof ik niet meer). Boeren (wereldwijd) betalen de rekening! Laten we in Europa proberen slimmer te zijn en verder vooruit kijken.

Willie & The Dairy Crisis
May 21st, 2009
Dear Friends of Farm Aid,

In the last few weeks, the dairy crisis in the U.S. has gotten even more desperate. Dairy farmers from California to Vermont are losing their farms and their livelihoods, struggling to survive while the bottom falls out of the industry.

Things are so bad that we may immediately lose up to 20,000 of our nation’s dairy farmers and billions of dollars from our rural economies, which are already hurting.

But there’s something you can do to help right now to make sure we don’t lose one more dairy farmer: Send a message to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging him to take immediate action to save dairy farmers. He’s the one person who can help change the fate of thousands of hard working families — and he needs to hear from you.

The causes of the dairy crisis are complex — including foreign imports and price manipulation by dairy processors — but the immediate solution is simple. To keep dairy farmers from losing their farms from coast to coast, the price of milk paid to farmers must be altered to reflect the farmers’ cost of production. On average, our farmers are currently being paid less than half of what it costs them to produce milk — and Secretary Vilsack is the only person with the legal authority to set a fair price for farmers.

Click here to sign onto our letter urging Secretary Vilsack to take swift action to help dairy farmers today. Setting a fair price for milk won’t fix all the problems that led to the current crisis — but it may be the only way to keep thousands of dairy farmers on their farms this year. Unless Secretary Vilsack takes immediate action, huge areas of the United States may be left without any local dairy farms at all.

Wendy, together we can help dairy farmers survive this crisis. It’s not going to be easy, but we cannot stand by and watch as families in every corner of the country lose their livelihoods.

Thank you for taking action for dairy farmers – your response today will make a big difference and we’ll keep you updated on what’s happening in the coming days and weeks.

Sincerely,
Willie Nelson