Before the session began, Arden Tewksbury, the manager of Pro-Ag, was able to get a personal letter to Secretary Perdue. The letter urged Secretary of Agriculture to take immediate action to help dairy farmers.
According to Pro-Ag, the total loss to our dairy farmers for each year for the last four years equals $12 billion. The loss each year to our rural economy is at least 60 billion dollars.
Pro-Ag is urging the Secretary of Agriculture to take immediate action to help dairy farmers by:
1. Holding national milk hearings for dairy farmers, to give them an opportunity to illustrate how tough it is on our dairy farms.
2. Pro-Ag is urging an emergency floor price of $20 per cwt. (hundred pounds of milk) to dairy farmers be placed under milk used to manufacture dairy products.
3. For the long-term, Pro-Ag is proposing the need of a new pricing formula that considers the dairy farmers’ cost of operation. Anything less than a new pricing formula will never solve the problems of dairy farmers.