06/21/07 Cuban trade? milk prices

Senator Mike Crapo is one of four Capitol Hill lawmakers who will announce today that they have prepared legislation to ease agricultural trade, travel and other restrictions to Cuba. In the past two years US agricultural exports to Cuba dropped almost 15 percent thanks to Treasury Department rulings. Crapo sits on the Senate Finance Committee which is chaired by co-sponsor Max Baucus of Montana and that is where the bills will likely be referred. Governor Butch Otter led a trade delegation to Cuba earlier this year with the intent of opening new ag trade markets. American dry milk is in demand. USDA says Class III and IV milk prices are up this year and that has pushed the all milk price to a record 18.75 per hundredweight. World Outlook Board Chairman Gerry Bange says factors overseas like drought in Australia and New Zealand are part of the equation. BANGE "And we don't see that turning around, not anytime soon. We do see a possibility of it turning around but that won't be until our fall of 2008. We just don't see the competition coming from abroad. The US is going to continue to be the major supplier of non fat dry milk in the world." Bange says consumer and foreign demand has also pushed whey prices to levels we've not seen in the past. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott