Wisconsin Farm Bureau President Kevin Krentz is on American Farm Bureau Federation’s dairy committee. He tells Brownfield, “Part of what this forum is for is to try to flush out those ideas, what needs to be fixed at the national level and what can be addressed at the individual order level.”
Krentz says the regional orders around the country reflect different pricing structures based on what the milk is used for.
Krentz says farmers are concerned about processors wanting to withhold more money from the milk check in the form of make allowances and farmers need a way to offset that. “In that pricing structure, going back to the higher-of plus seventy-four cents, we could look at updating or modernizing our component pricing, our component structure, and we need to look at protecting ourselves against negative PPD. (Producer Price Differentials)”
The conference started Friday with a video message from Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, who said the dairy industry had to get in a room and build consensus before he would consider opening the federal milk marketing order hearings. Krentz is optimistic that consensus can be found in Kansas City this weekend.
