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Kozak talks about Foundation for the Future changes

In response to comments gathered over the past few months, the Board of Directors of the National Milk Producers Federation has made some changes to their Foundation for the Future plan. CEO and President Jerry Kozak says the ultimate goal of the changes is to give the legislation to be introduced in the House a better chance at passage.

The biggest change involves the Dairy Market Stabilization part of the program. A number of dairy producers and processors expressed their objection to the mandatory supply management plan. On top of that, Kozak says when the legislative discussion draft proposed by Congressman Collin Peterson was scored it was determined that half of the money collected under Dairy Market Stabilization would have to go to the Federal Treasury. The revised plan gives producers an option, if they participate in the margin protection insurance plan, they must participate in the supply management plan but they can opt out. “If they don’t want the government to provide either basic or supplemental margin protection coverage, they don’t have to take that and they are not part of the market stabilization.”

The Board also made some changes to how the plan would go about reforming the federal milk market order system. While the plan still calls for changes, it now calls for a producer referendum on those changes and if it does not pass, the current provisions remain in effect.

Kozak says they have been in constant contact with Congressman Peterson while working on the changes. The end goal is to have this be the dairy provision in the next farm bill so participation in the program would be for the five-year duration of the farm bill.

AUDIO:Kozak talks about the changes 5:48 mp3

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