James Oberstar: “over the last 20 minutes, Minnesota's dairy farms have seen half of their numbers cease operations. In my district half…”

“over the last 20 minutes, Minnesota's dairy farms have seen half of their numbers cease operations. In my district half of the dairy farms closed their doors. That is 1,500 dairy farms. They were dairy farms. They used to be families. If the Solomon amendment becomes law, more Midwest dairy families will be driven off the land because the Solomon amendment will increase the price of Northeast milk, widen the disparity in regional milk prices, disadvantage Midwest dairy farmers, without real marketing reform. In our upper Midwest milk shed area, the average price dairy farmers were paid in 1994 was less than they were paid in 1980. The principle driving force behind that gaping price disparity and the loss of dairy farms in east-central Minnesota, in my district and elsewhere in my region, is the unfair, unbalanced, protectionist milk marketing order system. If you believe in a free market, get rid of the milk marketing orders. All you do is benefit some parts of the country and disadvantage others. The Gunderson plan in this bill is far from my ideal of real reform, but it is realistic, it is a workable step. We are moving in the right direction toward milk market order reform and consolidation. It moves the dairy sector toward a uniform national pricing system. The Solomon amendment is not reform, it is regional protectionism. We ought to vote it down.”