Lots of talk right now about federal dairy policy. Jim Dickrell, Dairy Today, offers an opinion on why dairy policy is so hard to change.
If federal spending wasn’t an issue, dairy policy would be easy. But deficit spending is no longer an option.
Anyone can propose change; getting that change enacted into law is an entirely different piece of cheese. That’s what makes dairy policy so darn hard.
At first glance, Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-Pa.) dairy reform package, “The Dairy Advancement Act of 2011,” seems like a common sense compromise for dairy policy reform.
Besides Federal Order reform and more mandatory price reporting by processors, it offers producers a choice: Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) payments or Livestock Gross Margin-Dairy (LGM-Dairy) insurance.
Heck, even processors sing its praises: “We applaud Senator Casey’s inclusion of critically needed risk management tools, particularly his call for an expansion of the LGM-Dairy program. . . . LGM-Dairy is the type of program that our government should encourage,” says Connie Tipton, president and CEO of the International Dairy Foods Association.
Upon further review, of course, the devil is in the down and dirty.
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