The High Plains Journal recently reported on an increasing number of dairy producers whom are standing up to tell others about the dire situation they have found themselves in during the past year. Here is what the article had to say…

America’s dairy producers find themselves in a “price-cost squeeze” between plummeting milk prices and feed costs that have remained high. Several public and private assistance initiatives are in place, but relief is not yet being fully felt at the farm gate, an Iowa dairy farmer today told a House Agriculture subcommittee.

Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Lang, partner in a dairy with his father, brother and sons, testified on behalf of the American Farm Bureau Federation before the subcommittee on livestock, dairy and poultry during a hearing on the economic challenges facing the dairy sector.

Lang said that due to historically low milk prices, his family and a number of other dairy producers have depleted cash that was put aside during positive economic years, and they are “now using a bank line of credit to help pay for daily operations.”

Coming off positive economic returns in 2007 and most of 2008, farmers responded to market signals to produce more milk. Lang explained that last fall, factors such as the global economic recession and a stronger dollar effectively shut down the international market for U.S. dairy goods.

Lang said “the demand shock from the evaporation of the international marketplace, excess supply being thrust upon the domestic marketplace, and shrinking margins of income over feed costs” are putting dairy farmers at financial risk.

To read the entire article, link here.