July 2009 Archive for On the Udder Hand

My most recent post was about the series of three congressional hearings that the House of Representatives has had on the dairy crisis.  Now, another leather sole has dropped this week on Capitol Hill, in the form of the Congressional Dairy Farmer Caucus being revived.

This development is yet more evidence that, despite periodic proclamations to the contrary, they “get it” in Congress; elected officials understand the pain in dairy country, and want to do something to help.  They may not understand dairy pricing (few do), and they may not fully understand the depth of the crisis and how various policies either help or hurt, but the reformation of the caucus, after a three-year hiatus, is a sign of the times, and a positive one at that.

The news conference today announcing the caucus featured liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, congresspersons from New York to California, and even a few that don’t have farms in their district, but are concerned about the dairy crisis.  The group is at 50 members, and will grow in the coming weeks.  One speaker said it well:  right now, everyone seems to be profiting from dairy farming, except farmers themselves.  And everyone benefits from a healthy dairy industry, which is certainly what we don’t have today.

Now, the fact is that both Congress and the USDA have few magic wands in their arsenal to waive and make the recession disappear.  NMPF has been vocal in asking Congress to weigh in with USDA on steps the agency should take.  The list includes boosting the price support program, and fully utilizing the Dairy Export Incentive Program.  Some of these (and other) potential policy actions have budget implications for both USDA and Congress, so as is always the case these days, price tags become an issue.

The most important long-term takeaway from the Dairy Farmer Caucus will be for producer organizations to channel their interests and concerns to a significant portion of the House, and Senate.  It shouldn’t take a crisis to make this group active or relevant, but if anything good does come from the financial crunch, this may be one example.

The dairy economic crisis drew the attention of the House Agriculture Committee on Tuesday, which held a day-long session to examine the causes of, and the possible solutions to, the burgeoning financial vise that is gripping dairy farmers.

NMPF was represented at the hearing by one of our Board Directors, Tom Wakefield, who owns a family dairy in Bedford, PA (not to be confused with Bedford Falls, the fictional place where It’s a Wonderful Life took place).  We could use some of Clarence the Angel’s magic incantations to help the situation, but no divine intervention appears on the horizon, nor does Congress appear inclined to step in at the moment.

Rather that regurgitate all of the witnesses’ testimony, I’ll just provide this hyperlink to let people see what others had to say.  I think it’s important to point out that the USDA, and Congress, are well aware of the dire dairy dilemma.  During his regional listening sessions this summer, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is hearing about it everywhere.

Some people may feel otherwise, but there is no lack of understanding in Washington about how bad the economics are.  What’s frustrating for everyone, from the White House to the milk house, is that there simply is no magic wand that Congress, the USDA or anyone can wave to suddenly make things better.  The same can be said about the larger economy, which continues to suffer, and where unemployment is growing.  Now there’s talk of another stimulus package to provide yet another economic boost.  Let’s face it, until the world economy shows definite signs of recovery, it’ll be hard to see a solid recovery of dairy prices too.

This is likely just the first of several dairy-centric hearings in the House Ag Committee.  Let’s hope the attention prompts some additional actions by USDA to fully utilize the DEIP program during the rest of the year, and bolster the price support program as NMPF requested last month. 

On a related note, I taped an interview earlier today with ABC’s World News Tonight for a story they are doing (probably to air next week) on the dairy crisis.  There’s been plenty of media attention in 2009 about the dairy situation, and more stories like this will hopefully help drive home the point that short-term policy measures in Washington can be critical to helping rectify the situation, at least to an extent.  George Bailey was able to persevere under difficult and unfair circumstances.  Let’s hope most dairy producers will be able to as well.