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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] US dairy crisis, message from Willie Nelson & Farm Aid
  • Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:35:31 -0600


US dairy crisis, message from Willie Nelson & Farm Aid
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
http://usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com/

The drastic drop in milk prices paid to farmers over the past year has led
to an unprecedented crisis for dairy farmers who, on average, are being
paid less than half the cost of production. Low prices and high production
costs threaten to push nearly one-third of dairy farmers off their land
over the next couple of months, strengthening corporate control of the
dairy industry and severely impacting the health of local and regional
economies nationwide.

“Setting a fair price for milk won’t fix all the problems that led to
the current crisis, but it may be the only way to keep thousands of dairy
farmers on their farms this year,” said Farm Aid board member Willie
Nelson. “Unless Secretary Vilsack takes immediate action, huge areas of
the United States may be left without any local dairy farms at all.”

Dairy farmers have been hit with a catastrophic combination of factors
beyond their control. Farmers are struggling to pay bills from record high
feed and fuel costs; adequate credit is increasingly impossible to come by;
and the price of milk paid to farmers by processors collapsed a record 30
percent in January alone, and is currently down 50 percent since July 2008.
In the meantime, the top dairy processors have recently announced 2009
first quarter earnings that are up from the same period last year. The top
processor, Dean Foods, reported their first quarter earnings are more than
double that of last year thanks in part to the plunging price Dean pays to
its milk producers.

Under Section 608c (18) of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of
1937, the Secretary of Agriculture is required to adjust the price of milk
paid to farmers to “reflect the price of feeds, the available supplies of
feeds, and other economic conditions which affect market supply and demand
for milk and its products.” Farm Aid urges Secretary Vilsack to use this
power to immediately institute a set price for milk that reflects the cost
of production, keeping dairy farmers on their land.

“The U.S. has a tradition of local and regional milk distribution, making
dairy farmers a base for strong local and regional economies. The loss of
these farms will reduce spending in small businesses, investments in banks
and shrink the community tax base. If we lose a third of our dairy farms in
the next few months alone, imagine the impact on these economies by
year’s end.” said Carolyn Mugar, executive director of Farm Aid. “As
our independent family dairy farmers go out of business, our milk supply
gets more consolidated by giant confinement dairies that do not contribute
to our local economies or act of stewards of the land like our family
farmers do.”

The petition can be accessed by going to www.farmaid.org/dairyfarmers







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