By Arden Tewksbury
(Jan. 28, 2014) As most people know the Senate and House conferees have reported out their version of the new proposed Farm Bill. Much to the dismay of many dairy farmers, the conferees failed to include the provision that was geared to direct the US Secretary of Agriculture to conduct milk hearings to consider establishing a new milk pricing formula which hopefully would have established a fair, stable price to all dairy farmers.
Then again, should we really be surprised that a few members of Congress are willing to saddle all dairy farmers with a complicated, unreliable margin insurance program? After a previous Farm Bill was passed that mandated order reform, I wrote an editorial entitled, “The New Farm Bill; A Processor’s Dream” which turned out to be a dairy farmer’s nightmare. However, the dairy provisions in this new proposed Farm Bill probably should be called the P.P.P. Farm Bill, which stands for the Processor’s Pricing Program, or the Processor’s Protection Program, or you could call it the Processor’s Profit Program! There isn’t anything wrong with having successful manufacturing milk processing plants or successful bottling plants, but everyone should be aware of the fact that dairy farmers need and deserve a milk pricing formula that would give every dairy farmer a fighting chance to stay in business. Anything less than a new pricing formula should not be tolerated by dairy farmers.
But, you know what? We will never see a new pricing formula until enough dairy farmers stand up and have a willingness to take a strong position on what they deserve. There just isn’t enough dairy farmers standing up and telling it like it is.
So, consequently it appears one more time that a new Farm Bill will be passed that falls way short of correcting the plight of many dairy farmers while at the same time some national milk companies pride themselves on reporting huge profits. Not only is there not a new pricing formula, the conferees have eliminated the milk price support program and will phase out the MILC program by this fall.
So now you have your margin insurance program. The dairy farmers have no one to blame but themselves.