What can be done for dairy?
What can be done to help the dairy industry? That was the topic of discussion before the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock and Dairy this week.
Pennsylvania dairy farmer Tom Wakefield, a member of the board of directors of the National Milk Producers Federation told the group, “Dairy farmers across the country are facing “an unprecedented financial catastrophe,” and Congress needs to work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work on measures to help farmers survive the situation.” Wakefield says the U.S. dairy industry was building up to meet growing export business and that export market disappeared when the world economy crashed.Wakefield reiterated National Milk’s call for a temporary increase in the government purchase prices for cheese and nonfat dry milk and thanked USDA for fully implementing the Dairy Export Incentive Program again this fiscal year.
He also informed the group the NMPF Strategic Planning Task Force is working on the development of long-term solutions for the dairy situation in this country and is currently gathering input from producers across the country. Once completed, the task force will provide their findings to members of Congress.
National Farmers Union president, Roger Johnson told the committee no single action by Congress or the Administration is going to solve this crisis. “NFU has long supported a comprehensive dairy policy that accounts for dairy profitability, income stabilization, limitation on imports, competitive markets and supply-inventory management.”
As part of the plan, Johnson says USDA should put a temporary $18.00 floor under Class III milk, double the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) payments, allow the labeling of dairy products as free of artificial of artificial growth hormones and deploy low-interest and emergency loans, including a foreclosure mitigation program to stem the tide of loan foreclosures. They also call for a complete overhaul of the federal milk marketing order system.
Dairy farmers in the U.S. are currently facing milk prices which are less than half what they were a year ago and well-below the cost of production.
*Read more comments from Tom Wakefield
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As a dairy producer, I have to disagree with the stance of both of these groups. The dairy industry is in hard financial times, but there are things that can be done without the gov’t increasing support prices or giving larger MILC payments. They just need to enforce the laws that are in place for milk quality (SCC limit) and MPC imports for food use. There is 1%-2% of the milk going into the food supply that is over 750,000 cell/mL. This would eliminate the so called supply that is out there.
There would be no over supply if the processors would not break the law by importing MPCs for use in the food supply. These MPCs are not labeled as dairy products but get used in food. No quality standards are in place on these products, but I as a dairy producer have to meet certain regulation in order to ship my milk out the door. This is unfair to the dairy producers that work HARD to put a quality product on the market. The USDA has been pushed by the processors and imports to allow inferior products to make it into the food supply in place of milk produced here in the US. I do not mind fair trade, but we don’t seem to get to play by those rules.
WE don’t need the gov’t to spend more money and get their fingers deeper into our industry. We just need the USDA to stand up and do their job by enforcing the laws that are already on the books. I think there should be higher incentives for producing higher quality milk. It would reward the farmers that work on producing a high quality product. It would give the processors better yields and longer shelf life for their products. The consuming public would be getting a better product on their dinner plates.
Ask enough dairy farmers and you can get the right idea vs some government round table group who tries to guess their way out of things they do not know.
The answer is so simple. Put the milk price At $18.00 and pay we farmers fair for our product. I agree for the government not to import foreign MPC for use in our American food. Who knows what you’re really getting. We have our own, so why PAY for someone elses? It would help the economy so much to pay us a fair price for our milk. If a farmer makes money, he will spend money. He might look into replaceing old worn out equipment and/or fix the broken stuff if he has money. He might update the milk house or worn out milking equipment, buy more bedding, extra products for cattle, fix realestate, even purchase some etc., IF he had been paid a fair price for his milk! Stimulate the economy? Start at the bottom and work your way up. An honest pay for an honest job done!! As it stands, what few we dairy farmers there are left have to spend every cent that there is NOT to try to hang on. If there is no American milk supply for our american milk products to be made, will then our ice cream and yogert also say, “Made in x-country”? I sure hope not. Pay is fairly, keep Amercian farmers before it’s too late. we are on the endangered list, shall be be the next ones extinct?