Dairy producers say that the Federal Milk Pricing Formula has caused them financial harm and they are calling for collaboration with industry groups to fix it.
The Producer Price Differential began before the pandemic as a deduction on their checks. However, COVID-19 exasperated the issue caused by the 2018 Farm Bill. Typically these changes go through a process involving hearings, but this change was made through legislation.
“So, farmers are asking, A, right now, that they fix this through legislation, but then also open up a new Federal Milk Marketing hearing in an expedited fashion so that we can work together with both processors and dairy farmers and come up with some solutions to alleviate or reduce substantially the PPD,” American Dairy Coalition’s Laurie Fischer states.
The Coalition says that before the Farm Bill changed the formula to be based on an average, the milk prices were based on a “higher of” formula.
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