06/25/08 Following Dairy Issues

Following Dairy Issues. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Going to the grocery store and grabbing a gallon of milk has often caused me to think about how it wound up there and exactly what kind of efforts went into its production. One thing is for sure, it takes more than a cow to get a gallon of milk these days. Jennifer Clark is a dairy farmer in Utah who has been finding out there is a lot of politics to that gallon of milk. CLARK: I wasn't raised on a farm myself and didn't really have any idea of what kind of affect legislation had on farmers and the longer we're farmers, the more we realize what a big impact it has. You know it's hard for farmers to get away from the farm and go to Washington DC like we did but we found that it'd one of the most important things we do for the farm. Clark and her husband, Bruce, recently were a part of a contingent of ag producers that traveled to DC for the 2008 National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) Dairy Policy and Legislative Forum to meet with legislators who may be not as aware of the impact they have. CLARK: We feel that lots of time the legislators are really far removed from the farm and have become unaware of how these issues affect farmers and so it's just important for us to get our story out there. Not just to legislators but to society as a whole that seems to be removed from the farm. 24 dairy farmers and other ag producers were involved in the legislative forums. Clark says there were a number of issues discussed. CLARK: We were there mostly to thank the legislators for passing the farm bill and also to talk to the somewhat about immigration and the Clean Water Restoration Act. But as we talked with them about those issues it lead to several other things, of course energy being one of them which is just a huge concern to us right now. The fuel costs which then have increased out feed costs. It has become a really big issue to us. She says the several years ago it cost $2.50 to feed one cow a day. That cost has now risen to $6 a day. And even though the cost of milk and dairy products has also gone up, the producers aren't seeing that end of the buck. As mentioned Clark says that immigration was a big topic. CLARK: It's important to us that the immigrants follow the laws and they're here legally. We're hoping that Congress can implement a plan that works for all farmers. There's currently the H2(A) Guest Worker Program that just isn't adequate especially for dairy farmers. It provides for workers for seasonal employment like at harvest times but of course dairy farms run 365 days a year. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.