Dairy farm groups send letter on farm bill
October 18, 2013 | 12:10 AM
More than 50 state and national groups representing dairy farmers sent House and Senate farm bill conferees a letter Thursday urging them to adopt the Dairy Security Act in the Senate version of the farm bill.
The House Agriculture Committee included the act in the bill it brought to the floor, but the House adopted an amendment that took out a provision that dairy farmers call a “market stabilization program” but dairy processors and food retailers call “supply management.”
“Without the DSA’s market stabilization program, dairy farmers will continue to suffer periods of unsustainably low prices, even as taxpayers will subsidize processors by keeping milk prices artificially low through margin insurance that blunts the market signals contained in the market stabilization component,” wrote the coalition led by the National Milk Producers Federation and Council of Farmer Co-operatives.
The House Agriculture Committee included the act in the bill it brought to the floor, but the House adopted an amendment that took out a provision that dairy farmers call a “market stabilization program” but dairy processors and food retailers call “supply management.”
“Without the DSA’s market stabilization program, dairy farmers will continue to suffer periods of unsustainably low prices, even as taxpayers will subsidize processors by keeping milk prices artificially low through margin insurance that blunts the market signals contained in the market stabilization component,” wrote the coalition led by the National Milk Producers Federation and Council of Farmer Co-operatives.
