Under the headline “Dairy Production Quotas in Farm Bill Would Milk Americans,” the Washington Post printed a letter to the editor from IDFA on its editorial page on Wednesday, June 24, 2013.  The letter, submitted by IDFA Senior Vice President Jerry Slominski, compares the proposed Dairy Market Stabilization program in the Senate-passed version of the Farm Bill to a federal raisin program that the Post compared to “relics of a long-gone era.”      

Noting that the proposed Dairy Market Stabilization program in the Senate bill is similar to the raisin program because it would force farmers to reduce production or turn over the revenue from the excess supply to the government, the letter highlights the overwhelming 291-135 vote in the House of Representatives against a program that “is designed to make dairy products, including milk and cheese, less affordable for millions of families.”   

“This letter represents the second time in a little over a month that a major U.S. newspaper expressed concern about the divisive and controversial proposal to impose production quotas on the U.S. dairy industry,” said Slominski. 

On June 19^th, the Wall Street Journal encouraged support for the Goodlatte-Scott amendment while noting that the goal of the stabilization program is to “keep dairy prices artificially high, which means higher costs for consumers and federal nutrition programs.” The Journal’s editorial can be found here.

For more information, contact Jerry Slominski, IDFA senior vice president of legislative affairs and economic policy, at jslominski@idfa.org.