Vilsack: Loan Help Coming For Dairy Farmers
Posted: July 7, 2009
I found some interesting news on MSN Money about more accessible loans for dairy farmers. This report, Vilsack: Loan Help Coming For Dairy Farmers was written by AP reporter Holly Ramer, and I have included an excerpt of the USDA’s plan to assist dairy farmers. It’s about time, huh?
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday he will soon announce a plan to make it easier for dairy farmers to take out new loans or keep up with their existing payments. The plan, to be released in the next week or so, includes providing farmers with operating loans at lower interest rates, reducing the principle of outstanding loans or allowing farmers to forgo payments for a time, Vilsack said. The agriculture department also is working with commercial lenders to guarantee loans to dairy farmers, he said.
The price paid by dairy processors to farmers is set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture based on commodity markets, which rise and fall with global demand. Some of the raw milk is processed into milk for stores as well as butter, yogurt and other products for U.S. consumption. The rest becomes powdered milk, cheese and whey for international and domestic markets.Dairies increased production when demand for U.S. milk exports soared last year, but once the global recession accelerated last fall, demand dropped, farmers were left with too much milk and wholesale prices crashed.
Vilsack said his agency has tried to buy wholesale prices recently by releasing 200 million pounds of excess powdered milk to schools, food banks and needy countries to reduce U.S. supply and accelerating payments to farmers through the USDA’s Milk Income Loss Contract program. Those two efforts will amount to about $1 billion for dairy farmers this year.
powdered milk Said,
December 31, 2010 @ 1:33 pm
This is awesome but the U.S. can produce more milk than everyone thinks, is just about hel the farmers and give some options to work.