The Farm Bill and the Dairy Margin Insurance Boondoggle

Hermie

Read an excellent opinion on the topic here. I can't believe everyone is so complacent about this matter.

Farm Bill vs Parity

Fiery Hill, where the boss's mom grew up, just a stone's throw from the wedding,

So as I understand it, everybody wants dairy farmers to jump on the band wagon and insist on passage of the Farm Bill, most of which will go to pay for food stamps and various other programs to feed the needy.

"If you don't lobby hard you will lose MILC," they  (including the very folks who supposedly represent our interests) cajole us.

But, wait, I have read, and had already been thinking all by my ownself, that no Farm Bill means a return to parity pricing, which stems from laws in the early decades of the previous century.

Parity would mean $38 dollars per hundredweight. Right now we are getting in the high-ish teens, $17 per HW for Class III. On my calculator 38 is a lot more than 17...or even 20....but then I was never much good at math.

So let me see now. If we lose MILC it only will be for three months until January before parity may kick in. MILC is a make-up program to try to match the cost of making milk to the paltry amount the current regulations allow us to be paid.

 It pays a percentage of that cost, and although welcome indeed, does not bring the price of milk anywhere near the cost of producing it. 

Many farmers much preferred the now-expired North East Dairy Compact, which raised prices at the farm gate by enforcing the passing along of some of the money paid for milk in the stores to the people who make it. It didn't add very much...a few cents...to the cost of a gallon of milk at the grocery store and it merely forced the middlemen to hand it along instead of hanging on to it. It made a huge difference at the farm.

It took money out of the market instead of out of the taxpayers. Quibbling among states that don't even have a fluid milk market worth mentioning quashed the Compact a while back.

Now we are told that we should lobby like heck to make sure we get supply management dumped on us and a new "insurance" program, and to save MILC, which only makes up a percentage of what we are losing producing milk, so we make sure that we don't get paid what it actually costs us to produce it?

Makes sense to me.....NOT!

Saranac Lake Farm Bill Hearings

MEDIA ADVISORY: America's 2012 Farm Bill 
Agriculture Committee Announces Witness List for New York Field Hearing

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture released the witness list and additional information for the following field hearing.

Friday, March 9, 2012 - 9:00 a.m. ET
North Country Community College, Sparks Athletic Complex
23 Santanoni Avenue, Saranac Lake, NY 12983
Full Committee on Agriculture - Public Hearing
RE: Future of U.S. Farm Policy: Formulation of the 2012 Farm Bill

Visit the House Agriculture Committee's website at this link to learn more about America's 2012 Farm Bill. Also, at this link you may submit comments to be considered part of the Committee's Farm Bill field hearing record. Your comments must be submitted through the website by May 20, 2012.

There will be a live webcast of the hearing at this link. Please note that video and audio will not be available until the hearing begins.

The witness list is below. Testimony will be posted here the day of the hearing.

Panel I

Mr. Eric Ooms, dairy producer, Partner, Adrian Ooms and Sons, Inc., Old Chatham, New York

Mr. Neal Rea, dairy producer, Chairman, Agri-Mark Dairy Cooperative, Salem, New York

Mr. Jeremy Verratti, dairy and crop producer, Verratti Farms, LLC, Gasport, New York

Ms. Michele Ledoux, beef producer, Adirondack Beef Company, Croghan, New York

Panel II

Mr. Larry Eckhardt, vegetable, field crop and beef producer, President, Kinderhook Creek Farm, Inc., Stephentown, New York

Mr. Scott Osborn, wine grape producer, President, Fox Run Vineyard, Inc., Penn Yan, New York

Mr. Ralph Child, seed potato and leafy greens producer, Malone, New York

Mr. Adam Sullivan, apple producer, Sullivan Orchards, Peru, New York

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Agriculture Committee Press Office
http://agriculture.house.gov