Cooperation would work
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Published: October 26, 2009
At the Vermont Farmers' Forum for Dairy Farm Survival (Oct. 16), expert panelists explained that dairying would be profitable now if all dairy farmers cut their milk production by as little as three percent, whether by feeding their cows a bit less or culling a few, either of which would reduce their costs, adding to their profits as the price of raw milk rose.
They also explained that dairy farms' profitability or unprofitability has little or no connection to prices of dairy products, because wholesalers and retailers control these.
Winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics Prof. Elinor Ostrow's work has demonstrated that cooperation prevents the "tragedy of the commons," where none benefits because all competed to maximize theirs.
What if all dairy farmers agreed to cut their production by such a small amount, and were not paid for any excess?
"With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed." (Abraham Lincoln, first debate with Stephen A. Douglas, 1858).
Howard Fairman
Vernon
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