“Dairy Buyout Not the Answer: NCBA/Woodall”

A suggestion the Senate include a dairy buyout in the current stimulus package is a bad idea, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The buyout, which would take about six and a half billion pounds of milk out of the marketplace to help prop up dairy prices, would have a devastating effect on the beef cattle industry, says Colin Woodall, NCBA executive director for legislative affairs.

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Woodall says a similar buyout was tried in 1986, and it dramatically hurt beef producers then, too.  

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A proposal to mitigate damages using other government funds makes little sense, Woodall says, and didn’t work in 1986, either.

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Woodall says the market should operate without government intervention.

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Woodall says NCBA is encouraging all beef producers and others in agriculture to contact the offices of their senators and voice their objection to this dairy buyout proposal.