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NMPF wants more dairy support

The National Milk Producers Federation is asking USDA to increase it’s support for dairy farmers in the next round to trade mitigation payments.

NMPF’s Alan Bjerga tells Brownfield while USDA has provided some relief to farmers, several studies show there’s a large divide.  “When the estimated losses that we’re getting from our own and independent analyses are ten times what the USDA is paying, you have to start questioning whether the USDA is taking everything into consideration that it should.”  He says Informa, Texas A & M and others are reporting dairy farmers lost roughly $1.5 billion in income since May, while USDA trade mitigation payments only allocated $127 million to farmers.

He says USDA paying more than $250 million to dairy farmers this year through the dairy Margin Protection Program should not play into trade mitigation payments but is a sign of how much dairy farmers are struggling.  “You could make an argument that this is the hardest hit sector in agriculture right now in terms of dealing with low prices and a sluggish economy.”

Bjerga says there’s no doubt other commodities will also have strong arguments for increasing trade relief for farmers as USDA considers its second round of payments.

AUDIO: Interview with Alan Bjerga