To the Editor (Wisconsin State Farmer 8/27/04)
Only a handful of dairy farmers were able to attend the USDA depooling hearing in Bloomington, MN on Mon. Aug. 16th. The rest of the room was packed with attorneys and lobbyists for the dairy industry, including many on the tab of the corporate cooperatives such as Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), Land O’ Lakes, and Foremost Farms USA that have been selling family farmers down the river for decades now.
The most riveting testimony of the day was that by Paul Rozwadowski, a family dairy farmer from Stanley, WI who also chairs the National Family Farm Coalition’s Food and Farm Policy Taskforce. He called for nothing short of a complete overhaul of the federal order system. The U.S. public certainly deserves a healthy reliable milk supply, but that is not possible given current “business as usual.”
DFA is now under anti-trust scrutiny by the U.S. Justice Department for its market manipulation and milk gouging. The cooperatives in cahoots with processors continue to import milk protein concentrate (MPC) as a cheap illegal substitute for domestic milk to the detriment of their own members. Insider dairy industry corruption at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is rampant, practically crying out for a federal investigation.
Rozwadowski reminded the USDA officials that the 1938 Agricultural Act 608 (c) (7) (a) clearly prohibits unfair competition and trade, yet the government has simply looked the other way when it comes to depooling and other illegal backdoor business practices. The obvious result has been to deny fair milk prices to farmers and consumers while ensuring outrageous profits for the dairy giants.
Oddly enough, while the dairy giants support depooling elsewhere, at the hearing in Bloomington they called on the USDA to close the loophole in the Midwest where the milk market remains just too competitive and volatile for their taste. Farmers, of course, saw this as just another corporate example of having your cake and eating it, too.
As Rozwadowski stated, “The Upper Midwest is not an island. The Upper Midwest does not stand alone. We are part of a national system, which should be working for everyone’s benefit.” And by everyone, he means farmers and consumers, not just the corporate cooperatives and agribusiness processors who currently take advantage of the federal order system to squeeze the most money out of the dairy sector.
Sincerely - John E. Peck, Executive Director, Family Farm Defenders
