More Dairy Woes
More Dairy Woes. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
Bought a gallon of milk lately? The price has really come down and for consumers that is a good things but dairy farmers are really having a tough time of it and according to Chris Galen with the National Milk Producers Federation, it isn’t just a local problem.
GALEN: It’s a very difficult situation for dairy farmers, large and small, east and west. But I think the other thing farmers have to keep in mind is that this is a global phenomenon. If are talking to dairy farmers in New Zealand and Australia or in Europe or over in England they would be expressing the same laments about very low prices, higher input costs and having a tough time of making any money.
Galen says it is really just another ramification of the global recession.
GALEN: Everything was going along great last year until the credit crunch and the economy seized up in the last few months of 2008 and as a result now we’ve got more milk than people are willing to pay a decent price for and so we’ve got to do something to reduce supply and again this is not just in the U.S., it’s all around the world.
They have completed a number of herd retirements in an effort to reduce the overall supply and help increase demand but in the meantime they have gone to Capital Hill looking for some additional help.
GALEN: We’ve asked the USDA to focus on short term immediate things to help out. One is to maximize the use of the Dairy Export Incentive Program which just last week they said that they would open up some additional allocations for the new fiscal year for DEIP which began on July 1st and if we can fully utilize the program that will help us remove about a billion and a half pounds of milk which is a significant chunk.
He says they have also sent a letter to USDA asking them to raise the purchase price of cheese and powdered milk under the price support program.
GALEN: At least raise it temporarily to a higher price that would return ultimately a higher Class 3 and Class 4 price to farmers. Not a huge windfall but I think every bit would help. So we’ve asked them to do those things, they do have budget ramifications and hopefully it’s something the Secretary will give consideration to. He’s doing a lot of regional listening sessions right now. At all these hearings he’s hearing from dairy farmers right now so he’s well aware of the problems here it’s just that no one from the President on down really has a magic wand that they can wave and all of a sudden restore profitability to farmers overnight.
More tomorrow.
That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
