What if there was no more milk?

Another Rethuglican Disaster-in-Waiting

Do you drink milk? I drink milk. I also put milk in my coffee, I eat yogurt and cheese. And let’s not forget ice cream, yet another milk product. Can you imagine ooey, gooey, yummy macaroni and cheese with no milk or milk products?

And yet, the Rethuglicans are trying to deny this reality for all but the very rich, and they’re getting some Democrats and Independents to agree with them.

Sure, there are people who don’t drink milk. Like those who are lactose-intolerant, and vegans. I feel for them, I really do.

Statistically, Americans have decreased their fluid milk and ice cream consumption over the past 20 or so years, while consumption of yogurt, cheese (and macaroni and cheese) has been on the increase. Overall:

[T]he U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) which reports per capita consumption of all dairy products reached 653 pounds per person in 2022, 63 pounds above the historical average dating back to 1975 when USDA began tracking per capita dairy consumption. Source.

Let’s look at some facts and figures.

• US fluid milk consumption (annual): In 2022, the per capita consumption of fluid milk products in the United States was about 130 pounds per person. Source.

• US yogurt consumption: 84% of US consumers report purchasing yogurt or yogurt drinks in the past three months. Source.

• US cheese consumption (annual): In 2022, Americans ate 42 pounds of cheese per person, an all-time high. Source.

• US ice cream consumption: The average American eats roughly 20 pounds of ice cream each year, or about 4 gallons. Source.

• US macaroni and cheese consumption: 97% of all Americans eat mac and cheese at least once a year. Source.

GO! Dairy Products!

And yet…the Rethuglicans want to do something that would greatly decrease milk production, and likely sicken and kill many herds of cows.

Here it is:

Immigrant labor accounts for 51 percent of all dairy labor, and dairies that employ immigrant labor produce 79 percent of the U.S. milk supply. If the U.S. dairy industry lost its foreign-born workforce, it would nearly double retail milk prices and cost the total U.S. economy more than $32 billion. Source.

That’s right, the deportation of undocumented immigrants would be a disaster for the dairy industry. And yes, also ALL raw food production (like planting and picking crops.) But it’s an especially fraught situation in the dairy industry.

Face it, if you have access to the sun, even if you don’t own any land, you can grow a pot of tomatoes or peppers, etc. on a windowsill. With a plot of land, or a community garden, your options expand. All you need are some seeds, soil, soil amendments, sunshine and water.

But cows? Gone are the days when a farm had a small number of cows, and milking was accomplished by hand by the farmer and his/her family. Now, to be cost effective, the herds need to be larger, and employees are necessary not just for milking, but for corralling the cows from the barn to the milking barn, artificially inseminating cows and birthing calves, checking for and treating incipient disease, keeping the milking machines functional, and preparing the milk for shipment to a co-op for pasteurizing, packaging, and making into other dairy products. These jobs are shorthanded to “3-D” jobs, meaning they are dirty, dangerous and demanding. You know, the kind of jobs “Americans” don’t want. Even so, some of these jobs are not entry level, you need to learn and it takes years to be proficient.

In addition, cows need to be milked and fed. If they are not milked and fed, in 1 - 2 days, the cow is permanently damaged. So, even IF it were possible to replace the deported workers, it wouldn’t happen in a matter of days, and that would be horrible for the cows.

Not to mention the impact on dairy prices. If there is less of a milk supply, the price will certainly rise. And let’s not forget all the other “to be deported” agrarian workers - think crops rotting in the fields because there is no one to pick them. Think of downstream economic impacts to the people who process dairy, fruits and vegetables. The truckers. The supermarkets that already work on low margins.

The fact is that undocumented immigrants undertake all sorts of 3-D work on farms, in meat and poultry processing plants, in the fishing industry, all sorts of places. The US population is aging and decreasing. Without immigration, our economy wouldn’t have grown as much as it has, and going forward our population will age and decrease more quickly than without immigrants.

And yet, people want to see them deported. A recent Ipsos poll:

That’s right, more than half of all polled Americans want mass deportations. And don’t think there needs to be a law for this, American citizens of Japanese extraction were interned during WW2 by Executive Order. A Convicted Felon administration can just deport the same way, no legislation involved. And let’s not forget that those sweeps can pick up American citizens. Under the previous administration:

All told, available data shows that ICE arrested 674 potential U.S. citizens, detained 121, and deported 70 during the time frame the government watchdog analyzed. Source.

For every Person of Color who assumes deportations won’t impact them, THINK AGAIN.

I swear, I don’t get the opposition to immigrants. With the exception of indigenous Native Americans, ALL of us either are immigrants; or our parents, grandparents, or other ancestors, were immigrants. We were always the world’s melting pot. And we are better for it in every way imaginable.

Do we have a problem with too many human beings coming across the southern border? Sure. And that’s a rectifiable problem, because it’s a logistic problem. Will it be easy? Remember this quote from President Kennedy?

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

The idea was that by tackling difficult challenges, we excel as a country. We reach for the stars, and we succeed. Solving the border issue involves money, people, and infrastructure. It involves revamping the WHOLE immigration situation, from temporary visas through working papers and green cards, the backlog in immigration court, etc., etc., etc., as the King of Siam said in The King and I.

“Deportation” is not a solution. “Deportation” is antithetical to any form of solution: it will create havoc not just on dairy farms, but to whole communities (akin to the loss of coal mines, when the farms disappear), to the extended economy, and above all to the tragedy related to deporting people who came here as infants, are now adults, and know no other life.

Personal Request from Jessica:

I feel very strongly about preventing deportation, and that means electing Kamala Harris as president. I don’t think enough people understand that immigrants are NOT criminals and bad people, and that’s why so many are in favor of mass deportations. So I humbly request that you restack this post so that people who don’t know about this blog can read this, and potentially help save the country.

Please click the restack button, and a little box will appear where you can add a thought in the “write something” box at the top, like “I like milk AND immigrants”, or whatever…and then click “Post”. Thanks in advance.