From today’s editorial:
The company was launched in hopes of securing a better milk price and more control over products for local farmers. But Acting CEO Dennis Myrick said the company has laid off several workers and owes money to creditors. Part of the problem is the economy, with higher fuel prices and even higher milk prices eroding the bottom line. But Myrick said a lack of solid, long-term financial planning has also hurt the company, which makes milk, ice cream and yogurt. State agriculture officials should offer any reasonable expertise to help stabilize The Vermont Milk Co. because a healthy company is beneficial to Vermont’s struggling family-owned dairy farms and the buy-local focus of agriculture.
There are some on the internet who are getting a lot of snickers over the problems faced by this company. It’s one thing to question anonymous infusions of cash as they relate to an interest of a gubernatorial candidate, as we have – but its another to take joy in what’s happening.
The VMC was/is a noble effort to help local farmers. It is, possibly, an unsustainable effort, as it’s somewhat predicated on a reaction to the market-driven inequities in the ag sector by setting up a corner of the market and simply deciding not to play the way everyone else is. That attitude usually leads to failure, the same way it would if you were to join a basketball team, get in a game, and decide you didn’t like the game after all, would rather play checkers, plopping down with a board in center court. It’s probably not gonna go well.
This is because leftists are better at critiquing the system than fixing it. Why not? The challenge of making the system better cannot be overstated.
But whenever a patchwork attempt such as VMC or Catamount Health fails, or looks likely to fail, it makes it that much harder for other outside the box thinking (maybe even outside the box thinking that comes with more comprehensive, realistic, and innovative long-term planning for its survival) to get taken seriously and funded.
So now is not the time to mock or scoff. We should be hoping they pull it out, and even – if we’re in a position to do so – offer our own assistance to make it work in the long term.