2011 NMPF Annual Meeting Presentation
November 1, 2011
For the November CEO's Corner, we are including the joint presentation made November 15th, 2011 by Jerry Kozak and NMPF Chairman Randy Mooney at the NMPF Annual Meeting in San Diego, California.
Jerry Kozak (JK):
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I know that our presentation is all that’s standing between you and the cheese reception, so we’ll try to make this short and sweet. Let us begin by reflecting not on the time of day, but on the time of the year.
Last Friday was Veteran’s Day: the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011. So it’s appropriate that we start this speech by acknowledging and thanking the veterans in our audience. Let's have our veterans stand, and let us thank them for their service to our country.
Randy Mooney (RM):
And next week, of course, is Thanksgiving. I want to thank my wife Jan for her support as I serve in this role. I should also thank Gail Kozak, for allowing Jerry to spend the time and effort that goes into his role. I know that requires a whole lot of patience and support. It’s also worth pausing a moment to reflect on the things for which we are grateful. Certainly, 2011 was a better year for dairy farmers than the previous two years, and we can be thankful for that. That said, the U.S. economy continues to stumble along, and farmers have every right to be nervous about what that means for consumer demand, and dairy prices.
Closer to home, I think the thing we should be very grateful for is the unity that our organization has shown during the past two years that we’ve been working on major dairy policy reform. It’s been a long road since the creation of a Strategic Task Force in June 2009 designed to come up with a better safety net for dairy farmers…and yet, the end is now in sight.
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