Jared Gaby-Biegle

“Larger dairy farms inevitably mean a system less geographically dispersed, larger environmental challenges with farm waste, and a less resilient system. The Institute for New Economic Thinking detailed these impacts in a recent report on the pandemic’s effects on dairy farmers, Spilt Milk: COVID-19 and the Dangers of Dairy Industry Consolidation: “The COVID-19 pandemic led to the collapse in commercial demand as restaurants, caterers, schools and other institutional customers were forced to close. Dairy plants serving supermarkets and grocery stores were already operating at close to full capacity when the coronavirus struck. Capital equipment specialized to produce for commercial customers were incapable of producing for consumers served by supermarkets or food banks. Some farmers had no choice but to dump milk.”[9] For the smaller dairy farmers, international (primarily Canadian) competition and price fluctuations are daily economic challenges.” — Charles Luke, Homeland Security Today … [9] Eileen Appelbaum and Jared Gaby-Biegle, “Spilt Milk: COVID-19 and the Dangers of Dairy Industry Consolidation,” Institute for Economic and Policy Research, August 15, 2020, https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/WP_134-Appelbaum-and-Gaby-Biegel.pdf