02/02/09 Dairy buyout
Dairy buyout by feds opposed by cattlemen. I'm David Sparks. Back with Today's Idaho Ag News after this...Plans to include a dairy herd buyout program in the $825 billion economic stimulus plan advancing through Congress are being opposed by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. President Andy Groseta says they're asking members of the U.S. Senate to oppose the buyout proposal, after already being defeated Wednesday in the House stimulus package to stimulate milk prices by using taxpayer dollars to cull thousands of older dairy animals from the herd. (Groseta) "It's not a good thing for America's cattle producers. Flooding the market with more beef just drives down the prices for our products. It's just not good for our industry. Thelast major dairy buyout was in 1986 and it broke a lot of cattlemen. Prices were decreased up to 25% and cost the cattle industry in this country one billion dollars." Idaho Cattle Association's Kent Mann says the beef industry understands that dairies have problems and believes that if dairy organizations handle individual buyouts that's fine. (Mann) "Our philosophy is that if the dairymen want to have a buyout with their own money we have no problem with that, that's just free market enterprise." But he doesn't believe buyouts should be part of the stimulus package. (Mann) "If they're willing to spend their own moneys to get rid of it, we have no problem. It's when we go to the government stimulus. We're in the same hurt they are. We're losing $150-$200/head. Another 3 or 4 hundred thousand cows on the market would even make it worse for us." That's Today's Idaho Ag News, I'm David Sparks for the Northwest Ag Information Network.
