Posted: 06.02.2010

Third District Congressman, Ron Kind, visited with Farm Director Pam Jahnke on everything from dairy reform to the struggles of capping the BP oil spill while visiting Madison this week.

Kind admits that there are plenty of issues greeting him every day at his Washington, D.C. office - including those of agriculture.  Kind says he's been working very closely with the Farm Service Agency offices both in Wisconsin and in Washington, to continue to make credit available to farm operations that are struggling - but even that isn't easy.  "They're telling me that the demand for FSA loans is exceeding the authorized loan limits that we have - and that's after we increased the authorized loan limits last year by 50 percent.  That shows you how tight things are right now.  We just need an up-tick on the prices farmers are receiving - that's the key."

What about discussion on the 2012 Farm Bill?  There's already been hearings to begin roughing out policy, but Kind says he feels there's already a national discussion on where dairy policy has to go.  "The thing I've been focused on, and we've been seeing it on a regional basis - is a national conversation on dairy policy.  What can we do to bring California in so they're not in their own isolated world.  What can we do to reward good quality milk production? For too long we've had a regional approach to dairy production - pitting farmer against farmer.  But if we can stimulate this nationwide discussion and get everybody on board as far as supply and demand to make sure we're creating a stable market for our dairy farmers  - otherwise this roller coaster ride is just so difficult for producers to weather."

Kind said he is getting regular updates from dairy industry leaders.  He said that representatives from the National Milk Producers Federation were just in last week updating him on where their policy development stands.  Kind also stressed that it's critical that farmers tell their elected officials their own story to drive the point home.  "It;s crucial - you have to feed us information so we can try to get the policy right for them.  We have the big farm bill discussion coming up, but we also have short term emergency situations we're dealing with like lines of credit."

Kind will be holding a telephone town hall meeting on Thursday, June 10th from 8:10 - 9:10 p.m. central time.  The telephone option allows people to jump in and out as their schedule allows.  The June 10th telephone event will feature Wisconsin's Farm Service Agency Executive Director, Brad Pfaff, who will handle questions on a variety of agricultural issues. Interested constituents may dial-into the telephone town hall by calling (toll-free) 877-229-8493 and using the code 1531.

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