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WASHINGTON – New York’s voice in the U.S. Senate is pushing to modernizing the federal dairy pricing system.
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand held a hearing on the subject in Washington Wednesday.
Gillibrand chairs the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, Poultry, Local Food Systems and Food Safety and Security.
The Democrat says the current system of paying farmers for their milk is based on milk marketing formulas dating back decades.
“The system is inadequate and out of date, we are using an almost 100-year-old system which had its last major reform more than twenty years ago for pricing for an industry where no dairy farmer is running their farm the way they would’ve a hundred years ago,” said Gillibrand. “They should not be beholden to a price system that operates as if they are.”
The committee heard from dairy economic experts and small dairy farmers who say that demand for fluid milk is rigid, meaning that consumers don’t buy more when the price is low or less when the price is high.
Gillibrand is pushing for milk marketing reforms to help update the system to the 21st century.
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