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US57 - Support NFFC's Dairy Bill, Instead of Subsidies.
| Support the “Federal Milk Marketing Improvement Act of 2011,” SB 1640, to stop the devastating dairy crisis for good. | |
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Description
Not everyone is aware that we had a great, progressive, "fair trade," "living wage" farm bill 1942-1942. There were no farm commodity subsidies because there was no need for them.
The problem is that: 1. economically, free markets, free trade and deregulation don't work for farm commodities, so we usually have cheap prices, like cheap corn, and all the problems it causes for farmers, consumers, Least Developed Countries, etc.; and 2. although that was fixed politically with progressive legislation during and after the New Deal, under corporate pressure, Congress reduced (1953-1995) and eliminated (1996-2012) these programs.
This bill specifically addresses the dairy aspect of that, by placing a floor under dairy prices and managing the supply, instead of cheap prices for big corporate buyers plus subsidies for farmers. In this bill, the corporations must pay fair prices, and no subsidies are needed. Read:
Arguments
A new video shows charts of abundant factual data supporting this proposal: “The Dairy Crisis & the 2012 Farm Bill.”
As describe above, farm prices for corn, wheat, cotton, rice, wheat, soybeans, etc. are usually low in deregulated markets. Under increasing deregulation, for example, they were below US costs for 8 crops every year 1981-2006 (except 1996), so we exported at a loss.
The same holds for dairy, which has long had low prices and is now being devastated by a severe crisis.
Subsidies have only partly compensated farmers for the huge reduction, and have left prices low to covertly subsidize giant dairy processors. SB 1640 eliminates the need for subsidies, and makes agbiz pay a fair price.
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