1. Do not support the NMPF. How can an organization represent the farmer (producers) and processors at the same time? How many NFL coaches would be employed with year after year losing records? How can Jerry Kozak keep his job? The milk to feed ratio is at an all time low. Jerry Kozak and all board member compensation should be linked to the milk to feed ratio. They currently should not be receiving any compensation, and they should be paying into a fund that distributes the money back to the farmers. “The trend is clear”, Jerry Kozak likes to rub shoulders with the politicians. He knows says that if the Dairy Security Act were implemented, we would have more money in pour milk checks. Does this sound like “deja vu” all over again? What about all those dairy herds and heifers that were slaughtered? What about all the milk products that are being exported via the CWT program, but cannot always be confirmed? Speaker Boehner said it best, “What we have now is a Soviet era style pricing system and the DSA makes it worse”. Has anyone told the NMPF that we do not want taxpayer funded insurance to supplement our milk checks? I don’t know who has the bigger delusional view of the milk industry; Jerry Kozak or the people that vote to keep him in that position. A college freshman majoring in agribusiness and raised on a dairy farm would do a better job representing dairy farmers.
2. Change the marketing strategy. Does a billboard with a cartoon character on it holding a piece of cheese ever entice people to go buy cheese? I would agree that it does not. Seeing an over paid celebrity with white foam on their upper lip does not make me want to drink milk. In 20 years, can the CMPB not come up with another original idea besides “Got Milk”? Placing imitation dairy drinks near the real milk products in the supermarkets does not help encourage milk consumption. Who has the better marketing strategy? Not the dairy industry. A freshman college student majoring in marketing and raised on a dairy farm (or a former dairy princess) could come up with more unique, profitable, enticing and creative ways to encourage people to buy more milk products.
3. Hold imports to same standards as our PMO and quality tests. That includes the PI count as well. I guess that would eliminate all the imports because no other countries use PI counts.
4. Find agricultural journalists. In the past seven years there has been more “voodoo economics” in milk price/trade than ever before and there are no investigations by the Hoard’s Dairymen Magazine (supposedly “The National Dairy Farm Magazine”). Everything from manipulating the CME to extortion goes on in this industry and no major “dairy” publication investigates. It usually takes a class action lawsuit from farmers to get the crimes noticed. The national farm publications only print what is told to them from the very same organizations committing these crimes. A college freshman journalism major raised on a dairy farm could do a better job.
5. We need to get rid of these folks that have a government dependent mind set and no creative bone or unique thought in their bodies. With a U.S. population over 313 million and a world population over 7 billion, we are not over producing milk and milk products. We are under selling.
Allen Barrett, Todd, PA
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