Milk producers ask for USDA help

Just one day after getting a request to help pork producers, U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack is getting a plea for help for dairy farmers. The National Milk Producers Federation is asking USDA to temporarily increase the government purchase price for cheese and nonfat dry milk powder. Currently, Commodity Credit Corporation serves as a buyer of last resort paying $1.10 per pound for cheese barrels, $1.13 per pound for cheese blocks and 80-cents per pound for nonfat dry milk. The cash cheese price on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Thursday was $1.08 for barrels and $1.12 for blocks. National Milk is asking to increase the cheese price by six cents and the powder price by four cents in hopes that will increase the price for milk paid to producers.

Prices have been a few cents under the support price a number of times this year, processors do not normally make the types of cheese CCC buys so it takes time and money to convert a facility hence they will allow a few cents lee-way before converting.

Farm milk prices are running about half of what they were a year ago but production costs have not declined accordingly. While the base price for 100 pounds of milk is around $10.00 the cost of production is around $15.00 these days.