Russ Feingold: “I rise today to discuss our archaic and unjust Federal Dairy Policy: it is hopelessly out-of-date, completely…”

“I rise today to discuss our archaic and unjust Federal Dairy Policy: it is hopelessly out-of-date, completely out-of-touch with reality and an outrageous way to treat the hard-working dairy farmers of the Upper Midwest, particularly Wisconsin. Federal dairy policy has been putting small dairy farms out of business at an alarming rate, Madam President. The Northeast loses 200 dairy farms per year, which is bad enough. Meanwhile, Wisconsin is losing 200 per month, which is disastrous. That's about 5 dairy farms per day! The greatest force driving Wisconsin's dairy farmers out of business and off the land is the current structure of the Federal Dairy Program. The Federal Dairy Program was developed back in the 1930's, when the Upper Midwest was seen as the primary producer of fluid milk. The idea was to encourage the development of local supplies of milk in other areas of the country that had not produced enough to meet local needs. It wasn't a bad idea for the 1930's, but those days are gone.”