Dairy farmers face hard times in Louisiana
Dairy farmers still are trying to recover from the hard years, especially 2009.Biggest dairy issue: expiration of farm bill.Dairy farming in Louisiana facing decline as fewer young people are coming in to fill the void of the older farmers who are getting out of the business.
November 7, 2012
While many agricultural producers have experienced improved conditions over the past few years, dairy farmers still are trying to recover from the hard years, especially 2009, according to LSU AgCenter researcher Mike McCormick, resident coordinator at the Southeast Research Station.
McCormick said with the farm bill postponed and support programs ending, many producers don’t know what to look forward to.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Milk Income Loss Contract Program (MILC) program ended on September 30,” McCormick said. “This program was very helpful to small producers like we have here in Louisiana.”
The MILC program, administered by the Farm Service Agency, compensates dairy producers when milk prices fall below a specified level. The program was part of the 2008 Farm Bill.
For dairy farmers producing less than 2.5 million pounds or about 290,000 gallons of milk per year, the program paid as much as $10,000, which was a nice bonus to help offset some costs, such as planting ryegrass, McCormick said.
“The MILC program was mainly designed to help the family farms because many of the larger farms out West are producing over 2.5 million pounds per month,” he said.
The biggest issue right now is that the 2008 Farm Bill has expired, said LSU AgCenter economist Kurt Guidry.
This means the support programs are unavailable for producers at this time and will not be available until it is either replaced by a new farm bill or a one-year extension of the 2008 farm bill is passed, he said.
Currently, no movement is expected on a farm bill until after the elections, during the lame duck session, Guidry said.
“There are two versions of the Farm Bill currently out there,” Guidry said. “One is the Senate’s version, which has been passed. The second is the version submitted by the House’s Agricultural Committee. That version must still be voted on by the full House.”
Once the House passes its version, then it along with the Senate version must go to Conference Committee, in which they try to pare it down to one bill. Once out of the Conference Committee, Guidry said, this bill must be approved by both the House and Senate.