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Agriculture is a science in USA. There are more than 100 in depth research institutions here that do billions of dollars in research in not only food, but all sorts of things. From the farmer's perspective, getting maximum production increases profits, but the FDA closely monitors product attributes to insure that what is produced is not dangerous for humans. Bovine growth hormone levels are not significantly higher in milk from rBGH-treated cows. On top of this, BGH is not active in humans, so even if it were absorbed from drinking milk, it wouldn't be expected to cause health effects in human beings.
As far as chocolates, the only difference is in custom. Canadians tend to use more dark cocoa in their chocolates, while Americans generally prefer "milk chocolate" which is lighter and sometimes has sugar additives to make it sweeter. Since chocolate is one of the very few ingredients that can not be internally produced in USA, the basic ingredient is always foreign produced.
Agriculture is a science in all advanced nations.
Milk production in the US is heavily subsidized, by the billions, and even that isn't working as dairy farmers are struggling. The reason they used BGH was because they knew any over production would be covered. That was fine until over production caused your milk prices to fail, which goes against your statement "getting maximum production increases profits,".
BGH is banned in Canada and the EU. IMO there is a reason. Also BGH free dairy in the US has a market.
Canadian farms do not get subsidy's, do not have to dump milk, and are doing very well. In fact during an interview when NAFTA was being renegotiated, I heard one Wisconsin farmer lamenting that he wished they had the supply management system Canada has.
You are incorrect on chocolate. There are set regulations, for standards. It's not just custom.
Here is just the difference between UK chocolate and USA chocolate.Not saying ALL chocolate in the US is poor, just saying that what YOU can label as chocolate, can not always be labelled as chocolate in the UK unless it meets UK standards.
"According to UK rules, a product must contain no less than 25% cocoa solids to be considered "milk chocolate." The US stipulates that milk chocolate must contain no less than 10% chocolate liquor."
"For example, if you were to compare a Hershey bar made in America versus a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar made in Europe, you would find a significant taste difference. That’s because those Cadbury milk bars contain 23 percent cacao in comparison to the American-made Hershey bars, which contain only eleven percent cacao, resulting in a much darker, richer taste in the Cadbury bar.
The second major difference is sugar content. As a result of American-made chocolate having lesser percentage cacao, there is a higher sugar content. That’s why Americans are usually known for their lighter, sweeter milk chocolates while Europeans consider their chocolates to be almost bitter as a result of the low sugar content."
Do you look around to make sue the coast is clear before walking in?....Sounds like me when I moved to MTl and started visiting strip clubs.
No, because as I said I don't go to such places when in NJ, and nobody knows me in Ontario except the person I go to the Subway with. And he is Canadian, so he doesn't know the difference anyway. .
Someone was telling me the reason BGH is banned in the EU and was never approved for use in Canada ( learned it isn't actually banned, but not approving is almost the same..almost ) is not so much the concern over it showing up the milk, but because it can causes cows to get sick and they may get pus in their milk. They then have to be treated with anti-biotics etc.
So when you have a system that doesn't reward overproduction, using it doesn't make sense.
We live in a border town and could easily buy American milk when we go into the US on occasion, but we buy our milk in the Canadian grocery stores from our local dairy.
I like to support local and I like to support Canada, especially in the last three years . I rarely see US plates on cars in our grocery store parking lots, which tells me that they are very patriotic/devoted, or don't have passports.
Their beef and pork is about the same price as ours. With the US dollar worth so much more, this is surprising to me that they wouldn't want to save money.
Milk production in the US is heavily subsidized, by the billions, and even that isn't working as dairy farmers are struggling. The reason they used BGH was because they knew any over production would be covered. That was fine until over production caused your milk prices to fail, which goes against your statement "getting maximum production increases profits,".
BGH is banned in Canada and the EU. IMO there is a reason. Also BGH free dairy in the US has a market.
Canadian farms do not get subsidy's, do not have to dump milk, and are doing very well. In fact during an interview when NAFTA was being renegotiated, I heard one Wisconsin farmer lamenting that he wished they had the supply management system Canada has.
You are incorrect on chocolate. There are set regulations, for standards. It's not just custom.
Here is just the difference between UK chocolate and USA chocolate.Not saying ALL chocolate in the US is poor, just saying that what YOU can label as chocolate, can not always be labelled as chocolate in the UK unless it meets UK standards.
"According to UK rules, a product must contain no less than 25% cocoa solids to be considered "milk chocolate." The US stipulates that milk chocolate must contain no less than 10% chocolate liquor."
"For example, if you were to compare a Hershey bar made in America versus a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar made in Europe, you would find a significant taste difference. That’s because those Cadbury milk bars contain 23 percent cacao in comparison to the American-made Hershey bars, which contain only eleven percent cacao, resulting in a much darker, richer taste in the Cadbury bar.
The second major difference is sugar content. As a result of American-made chocolate having lesser percentage cacao, there is a higher sugar content. That’s why Americans are usually known for their lighter, sweeter milk chocolates while Europeans consider their chocolates to be almost bitter as a result of the low sugar content."
Not to start an argument, but you are saying that for a farmer to not want to produce more product for the same money is not correct because he wouldn't make more money from it due to overproduction. That defies logic. While it is true that over production in a market reduces profits, for the individual farmer that does not hold true. But I'd be surprised if it isn't the same up there as it is here in that the real issue isn't volume, but butterfat content. If I were a farmer and "dumped" 500 gallons of skim milk, it would actually cost me very little. It is volume of product related to percentage of butterfat content that determines cost.
That butterfat is used in dozens of products. Liquid milk is but one part of it. Skim milk has the appearance of "milk" and contains the calcium, but it has little butterfat. There are various grades of ice cream, for example, but the best brands contain 14% butterfat, and minimal aeration.
As for chocolate, you are looking at the chocolate content as being evidence of quality. Well, if it is that quantity you want regardless of taste, I suppose you are correct. But candy bars here are not considered delicacies. They are cheap snacks, tasty for their mixture of chocolate and sugar. If people here actually wanted higher chocolate content in them and demanded it, market dynamics would make sure that happened.
I am sure that, as you mentioned, every developed country has research. There aren't any besides USA though that have it on the scale it takes place here. There are perhaps 4 universities in all of Canada that have intensive research on a level of American R1 research institutions. There are 115 of them here. In addition, every state here has what is called a Land Grant (Federal) university specifically designated to conduct agricultural training and research. They vary their programming and research based on the crops and products produced in specific locations, which varies widely in a country with such diverse climate and soil conditions as you find here. Literally, everything from apples to coffee to pineapples to beef to dairy to grains to whatever else you can think of is researched extensively here. In my little state (West Virginia) the primary research institution conducts US$ 187 million per year of externally funded research and perhaps nearly as much internally funded research. A recent effort is being made in the area of hemp production, which is only recently being made legal in America.
Last edited by CTMountaineer; 10-15-2019 at 10:42 PM..
Not to start an argument, but you are saying that for a farmer to not want to produce more product for the same money is not correct because he wouldn't make more money from it due to overproduction. That defies logic. While it is true that over production in a market reduces profits, for the individual farmer that does not hold true. But I'd be surprised if it isn't the same up there as it is here in that the real issue isn't volume, but butterfat content. If I were a farmer and "dumped" 500 gallons of skim milk, it would actually cost me very little. It is volume of product related to percentage of butterfat content that determines cost.
That butterfat is used in dozens of products. Liquid milk is but one part of it. Skim milk has the appearance of "milk" and contains the calcium, but it has little butterfat. There are various grades of ice cream, for example, but the best brands contain 14% butterfat, and minimal aeration.
As for chocolate, you are looking at the chocolate content as being evidence of quality. Well, if it is that quantity you want regardless of taste, I suppose you are correct. But candy bars here are not considered delicacies. They are cheap snacks, tasty for their mixture of chocolate and sugar. If people here actually wanted higher chocolate content in them and demanded it, market dynamics would make sure that happened.
I am sure that, as you mentioned, every developed country has research. There aren't any besides USA though that have it on the scale it takes place here. There are perhaps 4 universities in all of Canada that have intensive research on a level of American R1 research institutions. There are 115 of them here. In addition, every state here has what is called a Land Grant (Federal) university specifically designated to conduct agricultural training and research. They vary their programming and research based on the crops and products produced in specific locations, which varies widely in a country with such diverse climate and soil conditions as you find here. Literally, everything from apples to coffee to pineapples to beef to dairy to grains to whatever else you can think of is researched extensively here. In my little state (West Virginia) the primary research institution conducts US$ 187 million per year of externally funded research and perhaps nearly as much internally funded research. A recent effort is being made in the area of hemp production, which is only recently being made legal in America.
Overproduction means you have over produced. The word is SELF explanatory. In other words, you have spent time and money creating something you can not sell. So it's a loss. However in the case of US dairy farmers, over-production was a benefit because the US government subsidized them....until overproduction caused the price of dairy to fall, and the farmers started to lose money. That is why US dairy farms are closing. The US government even bought billions in cheese years ago, to help. It hasn't worked out for many farmers though.
The quality of chocolate, and what makes a good quality chocolate are easily Googled. Candy Bar/Chocolate bars vary in quality of chocolate in various countries, as I have pointed out before. Meaning, that a chocolate bar in the US that is labelled as chocolate, will NOT be the same as one in the UK. The UK will have better chocolate if labelled as chocolate. Just because most people in the US do not leave the US and are fine with lower quality chocolate bars, doesn't mean the rest of the world is. This of course will vary between bars.
As for scale of research...well duh. The US is 9 times larger, it only makes sense. I was simply challenging your grand statement that agriculture is a science in the US as if it isn't elsewhere. It is .
Overproduction means you have over produced. The word is SELF explanatory. In other words, you have spent time and money creating something you can not sell. So it's a loss. However in the case of US dairy farmers, over-production was a benefit because the US government subsidized them....until overproduction caused the price of dairy to fall, and the farmers started to lose money. That is why US dairy farms are closing. The US government even bought billions in cheese years ago, to help. It hasn't worked out for many farmers though.
The quality of chocolate, and what makes a good quality chocolate are easily Googled. Candy Bar/Chocolate bars vary in quality of chocolate in various countries, as I have pointed out before. Meaning, that a chocolate bar in the US that is labelled as chocolate, will NOT be the same as one in the UK. The UK will have better chocolate if labelled as chocolate. Just because most people in the US do not leave the US and are fine with lower quality chocolate bars, doesn't mean the rest of the world is. This of course will vary between bars.
As for scale of research...well duh. The US is 9 times larger, it only makes sense. I was simply challenging your grand statement that agriculture is a science in the US as if it isn't elsewhere. It is .
USA is actually 10 times larger, and does probably 20 times the research, but the government still buys excess cheese and other materials made from butterfat. It is used to help feed the poor, to feed inmates in correctional facilities, and to provide food for our rather large military establishment. The "Dairy" farms that are closing are mostly the small, family operated farms. I would agree that that is not a good thing, but the fact is in this day and age, corporate farms are more and more the norm. I include myself in the group that is not happy about that, since I come from such a background. But it is as it is, and money talks. Always has, always will. The big guys buy out the little guys for a number of reasons. As you pointed out, it is tougher for smaller operations to make a profit. Economy of scale means large producers have a built in advantage because they spread operating costs out over more production.
You can overproduce liquid milk, but not butterfat. If you have overproduced milk, the butterfat can be removed by a separator and used in other products and the skimmed refuse disposed of. It is essentially like dumping water and involves little loss. The butterfat is used in numerous products, and what isn't used can be stored or sold in foreign markets.
You seem to think chocolate is a big item here. It is not. It is not even native produced. The average person is fine with cheaper chocolate because he thinks it tastes better in other forms, but any individual who actually wants higher chocolate content can find that here too. Given the choice, most would simply choose the ordinary Hershey's bar with the sugar added because they believe it tastes better. I hardly use any chocolate at all, so I'm not going to judge anybody either way. I think the important thing would be to label a product with exactly what it contains and allow consumers to make choices on their own.
By the way, our government does not give farmers "subsidies". That would involve them giving them direct cash payments for doing nothing. What they do is they purchase excess production for many uses, including uses where the government is obligated to provide foodstuffs. Do these purchases affect prices? Yep. Supply and demand suggests that would be the case and the US Government is a very large customer.
Last edited by CTMountaineer; 10-16-2019 at 04:35 PM..
USA is actually 10 times larger, and does probably 20 times the research, but the government still buys excess cheese and other materials made from butterfat. It is used to help feed the poor, to feed inmates in correctional facilities, and to provide food for our rather large military establishment. The "Dairy" farms that are closing are mostly the small, family operated farms. I would agree that that is not a good thing, but the fact is in this day and age, corporate farms are more and more the norm. I include myself in the group that is not happy about that, since I come from such a background. But it is as it is, and money talks. Always has, always will. The big guys buy out the little guys for a number of reasons. As you pointed out, it is tougher for smaller operations to make a profit. Economy of scale means large producers have a built in advantage because they spread operating costs out over more production.
You can overproduce liquid milk, but not butterfat. If you have overproduced milk, the butterfat can be removed by a separator and used in other products and the skimmed refuse disposed of. It is essentially like dumping water and involves little loss. The butterfat is used in numerous products, and what isn't used can be stored or sold in foreign markets.
You seem to think chocolate is a big item here. It is not. It is not even native produced. The average person is fine with cheaper chocolate because he thinks it tastes better in other forms, but any individual who actually wants higher chocolate content can find that here too. Given the choice, most would simply choose the ordinary Hershey's bar with the sugar added because they believe it tastes better. I hardly use any chocolate at all, so I'm not going to judge anybody either way. I think the important thing would be to label a product with exactly what it contains and allow consumers to make choices on their own.
By the way, our government does not give farmers "subsidies". That would involve them giving them direct cash payments for doing nothing. What they do is they purchase excess production for many uses, including uses where the government is obligated to provide foodstuffs. Do these purchases affect prices? Yep. Supply and demand suggests that would be the case and the US Government is a very large customer.
I had time to kill this week, so thank you. I sometimes love playing with the little folks that live under the bridge.
Making them think they are relevant. Ha, ha, ha.
Now i"m done. Moving on. Good luck in your future endeavours.
You aren't as invisible as you think you are.
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. 
. I rarely see US plates on cars in our grocery store parking lots, which tells me that they are very patriotic/devoted, or don't have passports.
