Pennsylvania Farm Bureau (PFB) asked the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board (PMMB) to keep the Class I over-order premium price for milk at $1.60 per hundredweight and to maintain the current fuel adjuster for the six months beginning Oct. 1, 2014.
During testimony before PMMB, PFB stated that Pennsylvania dairy farmers have been living through drastic and difficult times over the past few years and that managing dairy farms continues to be financially challenging, even with recent positive income margins.
“There are a lot of dairy farmers out there who are still struggling to recover from the economic rollercoaster we’ve seen over the last five-plus years,” said PFB vice president Richard Ebert, who co-owns Will-Mar-Re Farms in Westmoreland County. “With the volatility in milk prices, weather and crop prices combined with high fertilizer, fuel, feed and insurance costs, Pennsylvania dairy farmers continue to need the premium.”
PFB also cautioned the board that the improved situation on dairy farms is not expected to last for very long and that a downturn in milk prices may already be happening.
“The financial status of Pennsylvania milk producers is not robust, especially for those farms that incurred significant debt to weather the economic storm of 2009 and 2010. The downward trend in dairy future markets, a significant reduction in cow culling and the strengthening of the dollar on world markets, raises serious concerns about the future sustainability of current producer prices,” said Michael Evanish, business services manager of PFB’s Members’ Service Corporation.
The over-order premium and the fuel adjuster add-on mandated by PMMB are assessed on Class I milk that is produced, processed and sold entirely within Pennsylvania, the fifth-largest dairy producing state in the nation. PD
—From Pennsylvania Farm Bureau news release
