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Family Dairies Applauded for Placing Caps on Dairy Production
USAgNet - 04/26/2017

The leader of the Wisconsin Farmers Union is praising the Madison-based Family Dairies USA for being pro-active and working with farmers to limit the milk that comes in, rather than dumping it or selling it for below-market prices after the fact. WFU President Darin Von Ruden said he also commends the cooperative for asking all of their members to shoulder a little of the burden of managing over-supply.

"Wisconsin Farmers Union urges dairy cooperatives to implement internal oversupply management systems that apply proportionally to all members to harmonize their supply of milk with their processing capacity," Von Ruden said. "Oversupply management should not be achieved by summarily dropping existing members. WFU encourages farmers who are members of cooperatives to advocate within their co-ops for supply management, in order to avoid costly dumping of milk due to oversupply."

Earlier this month, Family Dairies sent a letter to its members enlisting their help in managing the current oversupply of milk in Wisconsin. The group asked its patrons to hold their current level of production and informed them that if total output increases more than one percent over the past three months' rolling average, that additional milk will be priced at a different spot market rate.

Land O'Lakes was the first cooperative in recent history to implement a base program for conventional milk, according to Von Ruden. Organic Valley Coop and Westby Cooperative Creamery have also worked with farmers to balance output with market demand for organic dairy products.

Over supply of milk is one of the reasons why dozens of Wisconsin and Minnesota farmers were recently notified by their suppliers this month that they would be dropped as patrons after certain Canadian providences implemented new pricing measures to keep surplus U.S. milk from entering their borders.


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