Below is the text of the letter from 23 Congressman from 11 states to U.S. Secretaryo of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack
The Honorable Tom Vilsack, Secretary
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington, DC 20250
Dear Secretary Vilsack,
As Members of Congress representing this nation’s farmers, we write to you in deep concern over the state of this country’s dairy market. As you know, the May 2009 Class I milk base price is $10.97 per hundredweight (cwt). This rate is not sufficient for our milk producers to even recoup their costs of production, and therefore we respectfully request that you re-evaluate and amend the federal milk order pricing system to take into account the cost of production when setting milk prices.
Virtually all sectors of our economy have struggled in recent months to move forward and experience earnings that would, at the very least, keep businesses afloat and jobs from being cut. The dairy business is not exempt from this effort. However, this industry has its unique challenges and characteristics which make it extremely prone to changes in supply and demand, the slightest of which contribute to wide fluctuations in price. Prices fell nearly $5 per cwt in one month alone at the start of the year due to an oversupply of milk on the market, and have maintained their low levels ever since. Yet figures indicate that there roughly remains only an excess of 3% of product on the market. These patterns are not specific to the past six months, but rather mirror price increases and decreases from recent years.
While cost of production calculations may not have an immediate or direct impact on curbing dairy’s supply and demand volatility, controlling for these expenses from the outset would reduce the government’s obligation to support dairy later on as prices suddenly tumble and farmers are thrown into the red. We commend your leadership in resuming timely payments to producers under the MILC program to help the neediest farmers. However, we ask that you assess methods for setting milk prices accounting for regional costs of production to mitigate the need for government intervention and widespread subsidies, and lessen the impact of future market declines.
Thank you for your consideration of our request. We look forward to working with you to address these issues in our nation’s agriculture and improve conditions for our dairy industry.
Sincerely,
Michael A. Arcuri
John McHugh
Peter Welch (D-VT)
Michael H. Michaud (D-ME)
Joe Courtney (D-CT)
Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
Bill Shuster (R-PA)
Dan Maffei (D-NY)
Brian Higgins (D-NY)
John Hall (D-NY)
Tim Holden (D-PA)
Christopher P. Carney (D-PA)
Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD)
Paul Tonko (D-NY)
Eric Massa (D-NY)
Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT)
Paul W. Hodes (D-NH)
Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
Chris Lee (R-NY)
James R. Langevin (D-RI)
Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
Reading the letter sent to secretary Vilsack, it is so similar to our own situation here in the United Kingdom, falling milk prices and increasing costs is a recipe for disaster, at one stage we here in the uk were getting 17 pence per liter when costs were around 20 pence. so for every liter of milk we produced we were making a loss of 3 pence, so in our case we were producing about 1000 liters per day which works out at a loss of £30 per day or £10,950 year. it's a no brainer things just had to change or face the real possibility of going out of milk production after almost 100 years.
ReplyDelete