USDA has scheduled a national hearing to review federal milk marketing orders for August 23 near Indianapolis. Thirty proposals were submitted and 21 are in the scope of the hearing. In an interview with the Red River Farm Network, Associated Milk Producers Incorporated Chair Steve Schlangen said the numbers used in many of these proposals are still outdated. “They’re not anywhere close to where they should be as far as what it really costs to make milk into cheese and whey,” said Schlangen. “With the numbers we’re using right now to create a Class III price, the costs are from 2005. My God, I think labor was $10 an hour then.” Schlangen also wants the farm bill to include mandatory reporting of production costs in the dairy plants and surveying every two years “so that this thing doesn’t get way out of line like it has been.”
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