The current state of play on the 2012 Farm Bill is not business as usual, laments Connie Tipton, IDFA president and CEO, in her latest Cheese Market News column.
"No process, no hearings, no nothing – just a deal made by four people who happen to have seniority," Tipton says, referring to the chairs and ranking members of the agriculture committees who have "struck a deal" to cut $23 billion in ag spending.
It's unfortunate, she adds, that one of the four is Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) because his proposal for milk supply control would "shift costs from taxpayers to consumers, mostly families with children, in the form of higher dairy prices."