Tariff Costs Jobs & New Programs

Tariff Costs Jobs & New Programs plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

A new Emergency Assistance Program and Livestock Storage Disaster Program are permanent disaster assistance programs created under the 2008 Farm Bill. Scotty Abbott of USDA's Farm Service Agency explains:

ABBOTT: These are brand new programs. We had the Livestock Storage Disaster Program which it’s similar to previous programs in the livestock compensation program but it is a permanent program and we also have the Emergency Assistance for livestock, honeybees and farm raised fish program which is a brand new program but these are permanent disaster programs, they are not ad hoc programs.

A study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce quantifies the economic damage U.S. companies and workers are suffering as a result of the U.S. government failing to implement a cross-border trucking program with Mexico. The study indicates that Mexican tariffs, which have only been in place for six months, have resulted in the loss of 25-thousand U.S. jobs, 2.2-billion dollars in higher costs for U.S. families and companies and another 2.6-billion in lost U.S. exports.
Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

“Don’t cry over spilled milk” took on a whole new meaning today after Belgian dairy farmers literally dumped a day’s worth of milk production in their fields in protest of the extremely low milk prices around the world. It was an act of sheer desperation that has been met with shock and dismay, but like our own dairy farmers here in the United States European milk producers are struggling to survive while the price of milk continues to plummet, forcing dairy farmers the world over to sell their milk at less than it cost them to produce and leaving many farmers on the verge of bankruptcy. It seems the European milk producers are divided over such a brash act, many refusing to spill their milk or join the proposed “milk strike”. While no one wants to see soaring milk prices the milk producer’s frustration and desperation is easy to empathize with. The path that brought dairy farmers to this point was long and involved a number of different issues. The path back to financial stability for the world’s dairy farmers is going to prove to be just as long and a bumpy one indeed.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.