The dairy title of the 2002 Farm Bill contains the following highlights that are important to dairy farm families nationwide:

1. Extension of a price support program. The bill calls for a price support of $9.90 cwt. for 3.67% butterfat milk for the six-year life of the Farm Bill. The plan also contains language indicating the baseline for future dairy legislation will extend another four years.
2. Implementation of a dairy counter-cyclical payment program. The bill will provide 45% of the difference between a target price of $16.94 per hundredweight, and the monthly Boston Class I price. The payments will be based on up to 2.4 million pounds of annual milk production and will be retroactive to Dec. 1, 2001. The payment program will run through fiscal year 2005, and will provide the same rate to all farmers nationwide.
3. Extension of Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP). DEIP was extended for the life of the bill (ability to make export sales and be competitive in a subsidized world market).
4. Mandatory dairy import assessment. The bill requires, for the first time, that dairy importers to pay their fair share into the National Dairy Board for promotion and research projects. An assessment of 15 cents per hundredweight will be assessed on a milk equivalent basis on imported dairy products.
5. Authorization of Johne's research. Johne's Disease research was authorized in the event the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture chooses to implement such a program.
6. Increased Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) funding. The dairy title calls for substantial increases in EQIP funding. Established at $11 billion, this is a $2 billion increase over the last farm bill; moreover, livestock operators target 60% of those dollars for use.
7. Increased MAP (Market Access Program) funding. MAP funding, which is used to research and to assist in the exporting of dairy products, was increased from $90 million to $200 million.
8. Dairy Indemnity Program. The bill allows for a Dairy Indemnity program, which would allow for the payment to dairy producers who lose markets or ability to market milk because of accidental contamination of cows or facilities.
   

Return