Starbucks at it Again
Terry Etherton
Another week, another full page ad in the Sunday New York Times from Starbucks. How much do these go for now, $80k, $100k? (Maybe they are getting a discount because of this agreement.) This week’s version touts their relationship with the small farms from whom they purchase their beans—at a premium price, they point out. I wonder if they are aware that American dairy farmers are not getting those same premiums from the processors who supply Starbucks the milk that they are now demanding be from cows not treated with supplemental recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST).
I talked with a dairy farmer in Pennslvania last week. He milks 200 cows and uses rbST. His dairy processor has told him to drop the biotechnology or find another milk processor. He estimates that using rbST helps him earn about $4400 more a month. He is angry, and understandably so, about the economic damage done if he has to stop using rbST. This is CRAZY!
See, if you ask a farmer to stop using a tool that allows him to get more milk from fewer cows, to make more money, to use less land and water, then in fairness he should be reimbursed for all he has lost. And Starbucks entices customers with its persona of social responsibility, fair to the nth degree. But that is not happening with milk. Retailers are raising the price in some cases by more than a dollar a gallon—but processors are not paying that premium to the dairy farmer. And my guess is that the price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks will also soon increase. Their explanation will undoubtedly lay the blame squarely on the price of milk—a Catch 22 of their own making.
