The National Milk Producers Federation presented new farm policy proposals Tuesday to members of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Visit NMPF’s website to read all of the proposed policies.
In testimony Tuesday to the Senate, NMPF President and CEO Jerry Kozak said that “we firmly believe that a multi-faceted approach is necessary in order to create a more effective, market-oriented safety net.” Kozak said NMPF’s highly-detailed plan “was created with extensive input and discussion by dairy producers throughout the nation, taking into consideration the concerns of producers of all sizes. We have taken ideas that have been successful in the past and, where appropriate, built on them.”
Examples of these improvements include NMPF’s proposal for the dairy price support program. NMPF is recommending that it be changed to a program whereby the USDA purchases specific dairy products at specific price levels, in contrast to the current program, under which the USDA is given vaguer discretion to support farm-level milk prices. NMPF’s more definitive program will make the program “more predictable than the status quo,” Kozak said.
The same is true for NMPF’s recommendation for a direct payment program. The current Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program will be less valuable to farmers in the future. That’s why NMPF is recommending a new milk producer security payment in place of the MILC. NMPF’s program would be decoupled from milk production and price levels, meaning it would generate payments to farmers regardless of market prices.
NMPF is backing expansions of the existing Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Reserve Program. Such programs need to place added emphasis on helping dairy farmers invest in technologies that convert animal waste to electricity.