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NFO promoting Dairy Farmers Structured Management Program

The National Farmers Organization is promoting a plan to help keep small dairy farms in business.

NFO director of dairy sales Dick Bylsma says the Dairy Farmers Structured Management Program would use the federal marketing order system to pay a premium on the first million pounds of milk produced.

“Our program is unique in that we don’t change the product-pricing formulas being used in the federal order system now. So in other words, we’re not proposing a cost increase to consumers.”

Speaking to Brownfield at the NFO Convention in Bloomington, Minnesota, he says whether the proposal gains traction or not, the status quo is not acceptable.

“None of us know what the future holds, but all indications are that if we don’t change something, and change it quickly, we’re going to continue to see the demise of the smaller farm. And in the future, we could very likely have just a very few, very large corporate farms producing all the milk in America.”

NFO has been promoting its structured management program for more than a year. Bylsma says there’s strong support among dairy farmers, and commodity groups and members of Congress are starting to show interest.