Holstein World: What are the primary concerns of dairy producers with the 2007 Farm Bill?

Lee Mielke: Milk prices, I”m sure is number one. Environmental regulations would be at the top of the list, along with what impact budget constraints will have on ag spending and what affect world dairy politics may have on the dairy title of the U.S. farm bill

Dave Natzke: The primary concern is that, in troubled budgetary times, an adequate “safety net” is established to protect dairy producers in the event milk prices drop drastically. Many producers believe the current federal dairy prices support program and a counter-cyclical program – such as MILC in some form – can do that. Other Farm Bill proposals include some sort of milk income insurance program.

Other chief concerns include environmental regulations: not only what they regulate, but how much it costs the individual producer to meet those regulations. Will large capital investments be needed to meet rules covering manure or odor management, for example.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at 8:27 am by sschmidt and is filed under Guest Blogger Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.