(Host) Vermont Agriculture Secretary Roger Allbee says dairy farmers are facing a crisis.
Allbee says there is an over-supply of milk across the country, and it’s driving prices down.
Recently, a national industry trade group gave incentives to farmers to slaughter dairy cows in an effort to reduce supply.
Speaking on VPR’s Vermont Edition Tuesday, Allbee said the results weren’t enough to make a difference:
(Allbee) "They’ve just taken out or reduced 100,000 dairy cattle from the market. That didn’t have any impact whatsoever on the price, it was expected it would. There’s about 300,000 too many dairy cattle out there right now and most experts predict that, unless those numbers are reduced, that the price won’t stabilize."
(Host) The price farmers receive for wholesale milk is at a 30-year low – and the costs of production are significantly higher than the prices farmers are getting.
Currently farmers in Vermont can expect $11 to $12 a hundredweight. Allbee says it costs around $17 to $19 to produce the same 100 pounds of milk.
He says a major federal effort is necessary to realign dairy pricing. The Milk Income Loss Contract – or MILC – is a federal program that helps offset low milk prices.
Allbee says the MILC program was never designed to deal with dips in the market like the current one.