National Milk Producers Federation has offered some insights into the Senate farm bill, claiming that they like some of the provisions and dislike others.
Chris Galen with NMPF says the dairy provisions of the Senate bill are similar to those in the House bill with a couple of exceptions.
One difference is that the Senate bill does not assess the dairy promotion checkoff on dairy imports. “We thought we had that fixed with the last farm bill,” says Galen, “Now we’re trying to correct it technically and get it done in this farm bill.” Dairy producers have complained for years that importers benefit from dairy promotion yet importers don’t contribute to that promotion.
The other notable difference in the Senate bill is in the Milk Income Loss Compensation (MILC) program. The House version basically extends the program as it is currently while the Senate version reinstates the original payment rate of 45% and raises the annual production cap from 2.4 million pounds to 4.1 million pounds. Galen also points out that these increases would not be implemented until F.Y. 2009. Of course, “Looking at the futures markets, there are not going to be any MILC payments at least for the next six months.”
Next up for National Milk, Galen says they will work to get the import checkoff put in the bill on the Senate floor or in the conference committee. “We also want to make certain that the other things we have been fighting for don’t get tinkered with including a revised dairy price support system that shifts the target price to product prices and away from an all-milk price.”