“Meat the Need”, NASDA’s emergency rescue plan

The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, NASDA, is asking the federal government to reallocate stimulus funds for their proposed national agriculture rescue plan called “Meat the Need”, that’s “M-E-A-T.” Missouri Ag Director John Hagler tells Brownfield, “Agriculture, you know, did not get stimulus funding except for aquaculture. There just wasn’t a lot in the stimulus funds for agriculture because I don’t think they realized the need yet.”

Hagler says early this morning, he got a call from a third generation dairy farmer in northwest Missouri, “This is the roughest period she’s had in all that time of being in the dairy industry and she just doesn’t know if she can keep the doors open anymore. I mean, it’s just that hard on families. And you know there’s not a week that goes by that I don’t get a letter or a couple of calls that are very similar.”

Hagler says the “Meat the Need” program would set up a tiered buying system to deal with the oversupply in the dairy, pork and poultry industries and help the many farmers who are on the brink of financial ruin. Hagler says, “In dairy, for example, we ask them to buy 75 million pounds of cheese and we do it in three tiers. And the goal is to get the target weight up to the cost of production which is 16 dollars a hundred weight. And if we were able to get that target price up there then we know that dairies can make it. And we believe that this is the most efficient way to get that target price up. We have the same installment, for example, with pork. Buying in 100 million pound segments over the next 180 days until the target of 49 cents a pound is reached. And once the target’s reached then the buys would stop.”

Hagler says, “We believe that this is the best way, as a starting point, to start getting rid of the oversupply issues while at the same time, protect consumers. And we believe that if we act now we can save agriculture production in many of our states.”

The dairy, pork and poultry products would be distributed to food banks, school lunch programs, and federal low-income nutrition programs. Hagler says, “These federal programs already exist, we don’t have to create any new overhead. The only thing we have to do is find the funding and the will and the support to help an industry that’s critical to everything you and I do.”

Hagler says the rescue plan is being sent to U.S. AG Secretary Vilsack, members of Congress and the White House. Hagler says the USDA was at the recent NASDA annual meeting in Montgomery, Alabama where the proposal was put together. Hagler is on the NASDA working group that developed this proposal along with Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey.

National Association of State Agriculture Directors

AUDIO: Missouri Department of Agriculture Director Dr. Jon Hagler (8 min., MP3)