Word: milke
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Into that frigid cavern, and 328 smaller warehouses and depositories around the country, the Department of Agriculture each week deposits 45 million lbs. of unwanted butter, cheese and nonfat dry milk. The accumulating hoard, which now totals 800,000 tons, or enough to fill a fleet of supertankers, is the result of the U.S. Government's 32-year-old dairy-price-support program. How to keep the stockpile from swelling even larger is now giving the Reagan Administration something approaching collective indigestion...
...Administration has singled out dairy-price supports as a grade A example of waste, only to collide with the National Milk Producers Federation, one of the most influential lobbies in Washington. The dairy-support system that the two sides are quarreling over will cost $2.1 billion during the current fiscal year, almost twice as much as all other commodity supports combined...
...Social welfare programs such as subsidized school lunches and foreign aid absorb only a small fraction of what the U.S. buys each day. The U.S. could easily sell some of the rest abroad, but only at a discount. The 95? per lb. that the Government pays for dry milk, for example, is almost 70? higher than the price on world markets. Moreover, any markdown could anger consumers, since other nations would be getting U.S. dairy produce at a cheaper price than Americans...
Like most Government programs, the surplus dairy supports began for sound reasons. Because cows give more milk in spring than in winter, dairy farmers have always had trouble tailoring milk supplies to fit demand. In 1949 Congress passed a law obligating the Government to buy all surplus milk, which it does in the form of butter, cheese and dry milk. The idea was to keep the goods in storage during peak production periods, and then sell them back to distributors later in the year when production dropped off. The program gave farmers a steadier income while stabilizing the year-round...
...many afflictions that plague livestock, none is as devastating as foot-and-mouth disease. Highly contagious and with no known cure, it blisters the feet, tongues and mouths of animals, and causes lameness, weight loss and, in dairy cows, reduced milk production. At least 33 different species are susceptible, mostly such cloven-hoofed creatures as cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and deer. For farmers the usual recourse is to kill, burn and bury infected livestock. Often an entire herd must be slaughtered, even if only one animal has been stricken, lest the disease spread. Some years ago, British authorities...