Dairy 360 Report – new producer group for milk crisis
DAIRYMEN FROM ACROSS THE NATION UNITE FOR THE NATION’S STRUGGLING DAIRY FARMERS
HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA. Dairy Farmers across this nation are not just suffering, but in a crisis. Their years of building equity by providing this country with a safe and stable supply of milk has disappeared at an astonishing rate over the last year that mirrors the worst of Wall Street’s losses. The instability on the nation’s dairy farms threatens the nation’s supply of fresh milk unless immediate action is taken.
No longer constrained by farm size and regional differences, a group of select dairymen from across the country met in emergency session on July 8th and 9th in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to review the current dairy economy and seek immediate and long-term solutions to the low mailbox milk prices.
The meeting was organized by a new producer forum called Dairy 360, and hosted by Lanco-Pennland Quality Milk Producers Cooperative, of Hagerstown Maryland, and Chosen Acres Consulting, a dairy consulting firm, of Ohio. Dairymen in attendance maintained herds of 37 to 15,000 cows, and were from 14 states such as Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Mexico, California, and Virginia. Others in attendance were representatives of dairy cooperatives and cattle marketing firms, as well as other agribusinesses. Present for part of the hearing was Dennis Wolff, Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture, who expressed great trouble at “hearing from kids at county fairs this year with tears in their eyes about their parent’s farm going bankrupt.”
During the two-day blitz session, the dairymen heard dairy market information specialist John Bunting, of New York, who presented a very concise, but troubling, review of the facts of imported Milk Protein Concentrates, using government generated data. Bunting gave a fact-filled presentation with graphs of data about the thinly traded CME block cheese market, a substantial factor in the pricing of milk, that is easily manipulated and is a factor in the suppressed farm milk prices. Bunting has repeatedly called for “stronger enforcement of current regulations affecting imports and price discovery should result in immediate relief from these historical low milk prices.” For additional information, view John’s blog at www.johnbuntingsjournal.blogspot.com.
Doug Maddox, California dairyman and Past President of the Holstein Association of America, presented the proposed Dairy Price Stabilization Program (DPSP) gaining support from across the nation. DPSP is a supply management program that seeks to stabilize nationwide milk production, although differs in aspects from the Canadian quota system. Visit the Holstein Association’s website at www.holsteinusa.com for more information of the program. Across all regional differences and political philosophies, the group unanimously endorsed the program in its current form as the best solution on the table to help stability milk prices.
Discussion also was heard on the proposal of Jeff Weisel of Chosen Acres Consulting to reduce the amount of high somatic cell count milk. Kurt Williams, General Manager of Lanco-Pennland, advised the group that Lanco-Pennland is taking unprecedented action to reduce cell counts through enforcement of existing standards by encouraging farmers to produce higher quality milk through a combination of market incentives and penalties.
United by a common destiny and desire to provide the US with a quality milk supply, Dairy 360 expects to hold future forums, and members have already started taking action to promote programs such as DPSP and educate their neighbors and industry leaders of the challenges of imported MPCs and the problems with the CME that directly affects farm milk prices through the federal milk pricing mechanism. For more information, email info@dairy360.org.
