News
USDA making a $30 Million pork buy
Although it had requested a $50 Million buy, the National Pork Producers Council is praising Ag Secretary Vilsack’s decision to purchase another $30 Million in pork products for federal food and nutrition assistance programs. Vilsack says USDA will publicly seek bids to receive the lowest cost and award contracts to responsible buyers, “This is hopefully some indication of our understanding of the stress pork farmers currently feel and I hope this provides some degree of assistance in getting prices back up to a point where they can support our family farmers.”Vilsack says USDA found some surplus funds to pay for this pork buy, “And we took those surpluses and reallocated them to the commodity purchase side, so this is coming out of the current budget year – it’s not the new fiscal year – but the current budget year in an effort to try to get a response and reaction as quickly as we possibly could.”
Vilsack says they will give the October 1st budget for 2010 a fresh look because of the ongoing needs of dairy and pork producers and other commodity groups, “And we’ll also continue to encourage some of the institutional purchasers within the federal government – the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Corrections Department and so forth – to encourage them to look at pork as something that they can purchase while they’re making their own commodity purchase decisions.”
Interested suppliers and purchasers who want more information are being directed to the USDA’s AMS Commodity Procurement Web page.
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service – procurement information
AUDIO: U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, (6:00 min., MP3)
Tags: Commodities, Farm Income/Prices, Hogs/Pork, USDA
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