July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
A policy that doesn't make sense?
Opinion
Set aside, for the moment, the pros and cons of confined animal feeding operations.
Last week’s approval of a pollutant discharge elimination system permit by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for an enormous dairy farm planned for Randolph County raises another issue: Does this country’s farm policy make sense when it comes to milk production?
Like so many other questions, it’s no longer enough to consider the matter simply in terms of domestic American politics.
The global economy has changed all that.
Historically, the U.S. approach has been to provide dairy price support payments to help dairy farmers make a go of it.
The European Union approach, however, has focused much more on reducing the number of dairy farmers.
As we understand it, production quotas are set, and dairy farmers have the equivalent of a license to produce milk.
In order to keep the price up — without using price supports as we do — European governments have provided incentives to get people out of the dairy farming business.
In The Netherlands, for example, it’s in the government’s interest to buy out dairy farmers, pay them for their land, their herds, their equipment, and their “license.” Then the government retires the license. That way, less milk over all is produced and the price is propped up by reducing supply.
The wrinkle occurs when those same former dairy farmers from The Netherlands or other parts of the European Union then look toward new pastures in the United States.
Relocated here — usually with large-scale confined feeding operations such as the one just approved for Randolph County — they are soon in competition with American dairy farmers and put further strain on the price support mechanism by increasing milk supplies.
Does that make any sense? We don’t think so.
Again, none of this has to do with confined feeding operations. That’s another debate for another day.
It also has nothing to do with xenophobia or backlash against immigrants.
Instead, it’s simply a matter of creating an American farm policy that works in a shrinking and increasingly complex world market. — J.R.
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Last week’s approval of a pollutant discharge elimination system permit by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for an enormous dairy farm planned for Randolph County raises another issue: Does this country’s farm policy make sense when it comes to milk production?
Like so many other questions, it’s no longer enough to consider the matter simply in terms of domestic American politics.
The global economy has changed all that.
Historically, the U.S. approach has been to provide dairy price support payments to help dairy farmers make a go of it.
The European Union approach, however, has focused much more on reducing the number of dairy farmers.
As we understand it, production quotas are set, and dairy farmers have the equivalent of a license to produce milk.
In order to keep the price up — without using price supports as we do — European governments have provided incentives to get people out of the dairy farming business.
In The Netherlands, for example, it’s in the government’s interest to buy out dairy farmers, pay them for their land, their herds, their equipment, and their “license.” Then the government retires the license. That way, less milk over all is produced and the price is propped up by reducing supply.
The wrinkle occurs when those same former dairy farmers from The Netherlands or other parts of the European Union then look toward new pastures in the United States.
Relocated here — usually with large-scale confined feeding operations such as the one just approved for Randolph County — they are soon in competition with American dairy farmers and put further strain on the price support mechanism by increasing milk supplies.
Does that make any sense? We don’t think so.
Again, none of this has to do with confined feeding operations. That’s another debate for another day.
It also has nothing to do with xenophobia or backlash against immigrants.
Instead, it’s simply a matter of creating an American farm policy that works in a shrinking and increasingly complex world market. — J.R.
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