Dear Editor,

The $3 billion dairy bailout puts farmers and taxpayers at risk.

Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) has introduced dairy legislation (The Dairy Security Act) that will cost the taxpayers of this country more than $3 billion in the five-year life of the next farm bill. This bill includes supply management as well as a form of margin insurance for which the risk falls 100 percent to the taxpayers.

The Dairy Security Act would also reduce the overall dairy farm income by 80 cents to $1.20 per cwt. of farm milk, according to an economic analysis done by Dr. Mark Stephenson, a leading dairy economist from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

All of this is unneeded as the demand for U.S. dairy products is growing every year. Global export increases are in the double digits, and the opportunity to become a consistent world supplier of dairy products is here, if we want to take advantage of it.

What is needed for dairy is to have a more transparent pricing system, which includes daily electronic reporting and the inclusion of more products in the reports and to have more plants in the reporting process. We already have LGM-Dairy, which is a form of margin insurance that is only partially subsidized by the Government, and the risk to taxpayers is greatly reduced because private industry takes on most all of the risk. Dairy owners are starting to utilize this option.

The Dairy Advancement Act, introduced by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.), is more in line with what dairy farms need today, and it will cost the taxpayer a lot less. It gives the dairy farmer real-world, farm-specific tools to manage their margin risk in the cost of feed and price of milk, and it addresses the market issues. It also sends a signal to the world that we are ready to be a consistent supplier of milk products to meet the demand of a growing and hungry world.

If Rep. Peterson’s Dairy Security Act is sent to the Super Committee, we are urging Congressmen Dave Camp and Fred Upton to send it back to the Ag Committees, so that the process of negotiating a responsible dairy policy can be continued.

The dairy farmers of this country don’t need a bailout or supply management. All we need is the opportunity to produce milk for the United States and those around the world who need it. If given this opportunity, we will thrive, and the taxpayer won’t be on the hook for billions of dollars.