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NMPF not happy with dairy plan

National Milk Producers Federation president and CEO Jerry Kozak is not happy with the dairy provisions included in the fiscal cliff bill passed by the Senate early Tuesday morning. The farm package in the legislation was put together by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday afternoon; it extends the dairy product supports and Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) of the 2008 farm bill.

Kozak’s organization spent three years putting together a national dairy plan that became the Dairy Security Act in the farm bill passed by both ag committees. It was also included in the extension package put together by ag committee leadership over the weekend. In the end, it was tossed aside by McConnell.

Kozak called it a devastating blow to the nation’s dairy farmers. “After months of inaction, the plan that passed overnight as part of the fiscal cliff package amounts to shoving farmers over the dairy cliff without providing any safety net below.”  Kozak’s statement continues: “These stop-gap efforts don’t even qualify as kicking the can down the road. It’s little more than a New Year’s Day, hair-of-the-dog stab at temporarily putting off decisions that should have been made in 2012 about how to move farm policy forward, not offer more of the same.”