Dairy farmer Jason Leedle felt his stomach churn when he got the call on Tuesday evening.
FILE PHOTO: The milking parlor at the Eble family's Golden E Dairy farm near West Bend, Wisconsin, U.S., April 1, 2020. Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/USA TODAY via REUTERS
The dairy industry’s woes signal broader problems in the global food supply chain, according to farmers, agricultural economists and food distributors. The dairy business got hit harder and earlier than other agricultural commodities because the products are highly perishable - milk can’t be frozen, like meat, or stuck in a silo, like grain.
Leedle has dumped 4,700 gallons of milk from his 480 cows each day since Tuesday. The 7,500-member DFA told Reuters it has asked some other farmers in the cooperative to do the same but did not say how many. The cooperative, which also owns butter and cheese processing plants, said milk-dumping might also be on the horizon.
Another major problem: The sudden shift in demand from restaurants - now closing en masse - to grocery stores creates severe logistical challenges. Suppliers struggle to make the shift from wholesale packaging for restaurants to preparing retail products for stores. Trucks heading to restaurants, meanwhile, are getting sent back. Sartori Cheese in Plymouth, Wisconsin, has had restaurant customers refuse shipments of food they had ordered, said president Jeff Schwager. Some restaurant customers have called, asking if they can return orders delivered weeks ago. But processors can’t take the cheese back and resell it - or even donate it - because they can’t ensure it has been safely handled, Schwager said.
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