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Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by m_mueller on Sunday October 21, 2018 @10:24AM (#18268091)
Switzerland has had the exact same problem due to heavy dairy subsidies. Besides scaling back on subsidies, Fondue and Raclette was pushed heavily in marketing, which is probably why these are staples of Swiss food nowadays. I'm sometimes asking myself whether tabletop style Raclette couldn't be popular in the US. How strong is America's distaste for cooking food at the table (I'm just going by Lost in Translation here)?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raclette

Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by bipson on Sunday October 21, 2018 @10:45AM (#18268193)
Same thing in Austria, at least until a few years ago.

Farmers still complain over falling milk prices, and that they cannot survive. Yet the market is still saturated, milk was literally drained down the gutter regularly, every milk product is incredibly cheap IMO, considering how it is produced (although there was a butter shortage and a price "spike" last year).

Subsidies (and even worse EU wide subsidies) seem to do more damage than good in the long run.

Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by the_mitsuhiko on Sunday October 21, 2018 @02:46PM (#18269449)
> Subsidies (and even worse EU wide subsidies) seem to do more damage than good in the long run.

It’s important to understand why they are there. There are not there because states are scared of food instability. Austria for instance tracks how much of the daily food intake it can produce locally and there are yearly goals to make it 100% self sustainable.

If that goal is still important as EU member I can’t answer but it’s still a goal.

Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by bipson on Monday October 22, 2018 @01:37PM (#18276613)
Not entirely true in my experience. This would be particularly national interests and don't explain EU subsidies.

When staying particularly in Austria, the subsidies are there because national politicians and EU politicians from Austria want some part of the EU subsidies pot for their farmers, contributing to the general constant rope-pulling and trading "a piece of the cake" (i.e. EU budgets) - usually in the form of: "You get subsidies for x, we then get support for our poor farmers in poorer regions, since they are starving".

Generally the EU subsidies for agriculture are misguided and just money down the drain. Until they begin to dry up causing uproar and "EU took our money!"-complaints.

Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by the_mitsuhiko on Monday October 22, 2018 @04:56PM (#18278423)
I think there might be some retroactive argumentation going on about why they exist which does not go back to the roots of it, but if you look at why and how the CAP was made and how subsidies and price fixing within the countries works, you can still see where it came from.
Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by rco8786 on Sunday October 21, 2018 @10:28AM (#18268110)
Not at all. We consider it something of a luxury, in fact. (Cooking food at the table)
Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by toweringgoat on Sunday October 21, 2018 @02:36PM (#18269408)
So much this. The average Swiss person eats Fondue 1x per year, similarly Raclette.
Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by m_mueller on Monday October 22, 2018 @04:08AM (#18272955)
I doubt your numbers. According to [1], average per capita consumption of Raclette was 1.35kg per year in 2006, and that includes infants. Gruyere was even >1.7kg per year, and I'm sure a lot of that goes into Fondues. I don't know about you, but I can't down 1.35kg of Raclette in one sitting, and I don't think Swiss have changed that much since 2006 ;).

[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/record-growth-in-swiss-cheese-c...

Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by kageneko on Sunday October 21, 2018 @01:16PM (#18268955)
Like all things involving subsidies and the economy, there is an amazing Planet Money episode on this.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/05/02/607787950/epis...

Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by m_mueller on Sunday October 21, 2018 @01:30PM (#18269033)
Yep, I also kept thinking about that episode.
Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by stephengillie on Sunday October 21, 2018 @10:44AM (#18268188)
Is this why Costco stores have so much cheap Jarlsberg Swiss?
Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by dagw on Sunday October 21, 2018 @03:04PM (#18269550)
Jarlsberg Swiss

??? Jarlsberg is a region in Norway not Switzerland?

Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by cr1895 on Monday October 22, 2018 @05:14AM (#18273218)
That might actually be made in Ohio.
Re:America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants by sjg007 on Sunday October 21, 2018 @10:35AM (#18268134)
It was big in the 70s. I enjoy cheese fondue and raclette.