"Starting Saturday, the minimum retail price of milk, which has been climbing steadily this year, will take a big jump. A gallon of whole milk will cost at least $2.90 -- 50% more than a year ago. And in major supermarkets, a gallon could command more than $4.
{Now more than ever, America must drink paddy milk.}
"Dairy farm expert Michael Marsh blames what he calls the 'pizza factor.' The improving economy has apparently unleashed pent-up demand for pizza and other items dependent on cheese, and a surge in cheese buying by food processing companies and restaurants has sent the value of most dairy commodities soaring on the futures market. California's regulated milk prices are tied to the futures prices of those commodities, especially cheddar cheese and butter, traded in Chicago.
"But there's more behind the fortification of milk prices. For starters, there's something of a dairy-cow deficit. Because droughts have made for poor grazing, many dairy farmers have balked at paying for extra feed and have instead sold some animals for slaughter, lured by record prices for beef, made popular recently by the high-protein diet craze.
"What's more, the discovery last year of a case of mad cow disease in Canada [uh, that cow was found in WA, guy] closed off the U.S.' biggest source of replacement dairy cows, doubling the price of milk calves. And because of manufacturing glitches, there's a shortage of the genetically engineered growth hormone that enables cows to make more milk [oh no! what will we do w/o rBGH?]; that alone is expected to reduce the nation's total milk output by 2% to 3% this year."
Huh. I just realized that this dairy situation, when viewed alongside the gov't's ambitions toward hegemony, now confronts us with the choice between producing more guns or butter.
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