MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US Congress agrees 350 million USD for small dairy farmers

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack

The United States Congress has agreed to provide 350 million US dollars to struggling dairy farmers following a compromise during negotiations on a 23.3 billion USD agriculture bill.

Under the agreement announced Wednesday, 290 million would go directly to support dairy farmers who have been struggling with low milk prices, while the remaining 60 million would be used to purchase cheese and other dairy products for food banks and nutrition programs.

The purchases would take products out of the market in the hopes that the move will spur an increase in wholesale prices. The US Senate approved the money in July, but there was no language included on how the money would be divided among the farms across the country.

The compromise Wednesday gives Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack the authority to come up with a formula for distributing the money.

“Dairy farmers are struggling just to stay afloat through this storm of mounting costs and depressed prices. Right now another day of farming means another day of losses. I know that Agriculture Secretary Vilsack and President Obama know how severe this dairy crisis is, and I am confident that they will put this help into farmers' hands as quickly as the can, once Congress passes it” said Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont.

“Our main goal in passing this was not to support corporate farms, but to support family based agriculture. Farmers in every state should benefit by this but the focus was not to benefit every cow in a two thousand or 10 thousand cow herd but to focus on small, family farms” said Senator Bernard Sanders.

And he said that while the emergency money will help farmers right away, there is still a lot to do to address the long-term stability of small family farming.

“Everybody who knows about dairy pricing knows that it is very complicated,” said Sanders. “We need to take a long-term view but we are doing what we can right now to address this in the short term. This is not going to solve every problem, but this check is going to help.”