Estabrook Barry
Gastronomica (Berkeley Calif). 2010;10(4):48-52. doi: 10.1525/gfc.2010.10.4.48.
Milk has always been susceptible to price fluctuations. Farmers are used to putting away money during good times to see themselves through lean times. Recently, however, the cycles have become more violent, with lows falling lower and highs rising not quite so high and the intervals between peaks and valleys shrinking. In 1970, when milk was bringing farmers the same amount that it is today, there were nearly 650,000 dairy farms in the United States. Now there are fewer than one tenth as many, only about 54,000. The largest 1 percent of dairy farms (a figure than includes only enormous factory farms with over 2,000 cows) produced nearly one quarter of the milk we consume. Recently, dairy farmers banded together to propose a radical solution to the dairy crisis. In order to survive, they concluded, American dairy farmers would have to join together to control the supply of milk, an approach along lines similar to the one taken in Canada.
牛奶价格向来容易波动。农民们习惯在光景好的时候存钱，以备荒年之需。然而，近来价格周期变得更加剧烈，低价降得更低，高价升得没那么高，峰谷之间的间隔也在缩短。1970年，牛奶给农民带来的收益与如今相当，当时美国有近65万家奶牛场。如今，奶牛场数量还不到那时的十分之一，只有约5.4万家。最大的1%的奶牛场（这个数字仅包括拥有2000多头奶牛的大型工厂化农场）生产了我们所消费牛奶的近四分之一。最近，奶农们联合起来，提出了一个激进的解决奶牛危机的方案。他们得出结论，为了生存，美国奶农必须联合起来控制牛奶供应，这种做法类似于加拿大采取的方式。
