Powdered Milk

 In an effort to help support both low-income families and the nation's struggling dairy farmers, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced that the USDA will transfer approximately 200 million pounds of nonfat dry milk from the Commodity Credit Corporation to USDA's Food and Nutrition Service to feed the hungry. The  plan will benefit dairy farmers, who have seen markets disappear and prices plummet in recent months, by increasing consumption of milk and other dairy products.

 Here’s Bob Naerbout, Executive Director, Idaho Dairymen’s Association about the program. “What it does is, the government’s been buying powdered products and putting them into storage. It takes them out of storage and is giving them to nutrition programs which is important both for the poor and important for our industry to get them out of storage so they don’t hold the market down. It really starts as a support program which buys powdered product and it puts it into storage which holds down the price even longer because that’s always a threat for that to come back into the market at some point, which is the plan of the program that as the price rises, they would put product back into the market. It’s a win-win for those who need high quality nutrition and for the dairy industry.”