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National Milk Producers disappointed MPP fix not included in budget bill

The National Milk Producers Federation expressed disappointment after learning Congress is unlikely to include spending provisions intended to improve the Dairy Margin Protection Program (MPP).

National Milk senior vice president of communications Chris Galen says a year-end budget deal to fund the federal government will apparently get done without additional resources for dairy and cotton producers.

“That’s obviously a big disappointment for dairy farmers (and) for cotton producers as well because they were looking at both those programs.  Neither one of those safety nets is effective, and so our message is that we’ve got to continue looking for ways to help our dairy farmers out.”

Brownfield interviewed Galen as he was learning the fate of the dairy and cotton provisions while attending NAFB’s Washington Watch event.

“Certainly we’re going to look for every available opportunity.  And out point to Congress has been that the next Farm Bill may not get written until next year.  Or if they decide to push it back, which happened with the previous Farm Bill, it could be even later than 2018.  And we don’t want our farmers to have to wait that long.”

National Milk is asking Congress to change the feed formula of the current MPP program, adjust the price sources of feedstuffs, and adjust premiums to ensure farmers are incentivized to use the program.

 

 

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