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The global financial meltdown that dried up export markets for US dairy exports now has prompted an effort by major dairy cooperatives to reach a consensus on new dairy policy.

A top dairy producer warned, however, that the beleaguered industry may need relief from Congress before the new farm bill is completed in 2012.

House Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson (D., Minn.), who completed the first series of field hearings on the new farm bill last week, earlier had praised the dairy industry’s determination to forge a new policy proposal.

“I never thought I’d say this, but the dairy industry has been the most forward looking, pulling the industry toward something that is substantially different from what they’re used to,” Peterson told reporters in late April.

US dairy policy has long been viewed as regionalised and intensely complicated.

The dairy industry’s new direction was outlined in testimony given during a May 4 field hearing in Cheyenne, Wyo.

Les Hardesty, a Colorado dairy producer, testified that the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) is working to build a consensus within the industry and has integrated several principles developed by Dairy Farmers of America’s Dairy Growth Management Initiative into a new policy proposal.

Hardesty chairs the National Dairy Board and is a leader of both NMPF and Dairy Farmers of America. Despite his plea for action to aid the dairy industry before the farm bill is completed, Peterson is on record saying neither the dairy program nor the cotton program, both of which are authorized in the farm bill, is likely to see revisions until the new legislation is completed.

NMPF’s policy centers on four proposals, Hardesty testified, including:

• Revamping the Dairy Products Price Support Program and the Milk Income Loss Contract program;
• Creating a program that sends a direct economic signal to each individual producer to manage production;
• Creating a new dairy producer income insurance program, and
• Reforming federal milk marketing orders.

Peterson has challenged commodity and farm groups to begin “an honest debate” on U.S. farm policy and to come forward with new policy proposals. He praised the dairy industry’s initiative as “the type of effort that is useful for other commodity groups.”

SALLY SCHUFF

Source: sl.farmonline.com.au