Dairy farmers are strapped.  Where I work, we sell steak.  LOTS of it.  And the price of steak has a lot to do with the viability of our bottom line.  I said early last year when corn prices started going up that the price of steak would go down because dairy farmers wouldn't be able to keep all of their cows and would thin out the herd, so to speak, in favor of the most productive. 

But I didn't see the recession coming or the melamine thing at all.  These guys are getting less than HALF what it costs to produce a gallon of milk.  If they half to keep selling dairy cows to slaughter houses to make ends meet, then soon there won't be very many dairy cows.

The benefits of low-fat and skim-milk are huge enough that everyone should drink plenty of it, barring of course the extremely competitive physique athletes, who typically still drink SOME milk.  Whole milk, maybe not so much, but that doesn't matter.  What matters is that without an American milk industry, we're going to be dependant on a CHINESE or some other such milk industry, and frankly, I don't think that there will be enough oversight or integrity to protect our children.

Buy some milk and cheese!!