Ryan Congratulates Wisconsin Conferees on Farm Bill For Dairy Victory

JANESVILLE – U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) today congratulated his colleague U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Green Bay) and other Members of the Wisconsin congressional delegation who serve on the conference committee that negotiated a House-Senate compromise on a new national farm bill. An agreement on that legislation was announced this afternoon, which brings good news for Wisconsin dairy farmers because it marks a new national approach to dairy policy – in contrast to the regional system that has penalized Wisconsin’s dairy farmers for years.

"This is a great win for our dairy farmers, who – for far too long – have had to wage an uphill battle because of our government’s irrational dairy policy," Ryan said. "I’d like to thank those who pushed for fairness for our farmers in the conference committee. Wisconsin members worked together to eliminate the Northeast Dairy Compact, and this marks the latest victory in the fight for a level playing ground for our dairy farmers."

The final dairy plan that is part of the farm bill incorporates some of the principles of legislation introduced earlier this year by Reps. Green and Ryan. The Green-Ryan bill would have established a "countercyclical" milk price support program to provide all dairy farmers payments in proportion to corresponding drops in milk prices below certain levels. Overall, their legislation emphasized a national approach to dairy, rather than the present system of regional inequities.

According to conferees, the final dairy plan announced today will establish a new countercyclical price support program that will be triggered whenever the price of "Class I" milk in Boston falls below $16.94 per hundredweight. The program will pay out 45 cents for every dollar the price falls below that $16.94 trigger. Although the new plan will be based on milk prices in Boston, it will pay out to all U.S. dairy farmers on all classes of milk. So, dairy farmers in Wisconsin will be treated the same – in terms of price supports – as dairy farmers in Vermont. The payments will be capped at 2.4 million pounds per year – the amount typically produced each year by a 133-cow dairy.