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Farm Bill package [8], ranging from enhanced conservation and environment funding, to improvements in the dairy Price Support program, have been addressed.
House and Senate negotiators appear to have reached an accord on another item relevant to our dairy package: the MILC program, which is expected to contain a feed cost adjuster. Another important item still unresolved is the fate of the proposal to apply the domestic dairy checkoff to imports. That issue is still in play, despite all-out attempts by importers, foreign governments and processors to block it.
President Bush has been critical of the bill, particularly in the area of payment limitations – another issue still under negotiation – but NMPF President and CEO Jerry Kozak said that “we are hopeful he will sign it when all is said and done.”
found here [9]). The final report said that “industrial farm animal production” poses risks to the human and animal health, and to the environment.
NMPF had monitored the commission’s work, and had provided a variety of technical information to the commission’s staff and members, and in 2006 arranged for them to visit a dairy in California. Like many of the other livestock sectors examined by the commission, dairy received some criticism for certain of its approaches to milk production, although the commission’s broad final recommendations were a mixed bag.
Two of them, in fact, are ones that NMPF supports: the need for a national animal ID system to facilitate food traceability, and another recommendation about the general need for more funding into animal research. Several of the other recommendations don’t really apply to dairy, and some we will challenge. The only dairy-specific critique in the executive summary of the report was of tail docking. NMPF did join a coalition of other agriculture groups in issuing a statement [10] pointing out how the commission’s process may have been skewed by its make-up, and by how it process information.
NMPF will be monitoring the commission’s future actions, particularly on Capitol Hill, to ensure that any recommendations about the dairy industry are credibly countered.
Federal Register [11].
email [12]. To learn more about WUD, please visit their website [13].
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