Madison, WI – Today, Wisconsin legislators and staff received a briefing from Dr. Mark Stephenson, Dairy Economist and Director of the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Profitability. His presentation shared encouraging results from recent analyses of federal dairy policies designed to reduce volatility in dairy markets and improve dairy farm profitability. These policies also show promise for significantly reducing U.S. government expenditures on dairy programs and curbing farm loss. Over a hundred people attended today’s briefing.
“Any time you can get the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, the Wisconsin Farmers Union, and the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin into a room to discuss the future of the industry it’s a great day. I’m very excited that Dr. Stephenson was willing to come to the Capitol to talk about what the future of the industry could look like if we were willing to make some changes,” said Tranel. “Changes that would hopefully bring some stability and take price swings out of the market that we have seen too many fall victim to the last couple of years. I was highly encouraged and can’t wait to keep this conversation moving forward.”
This event was held in cooperation with stakeholder groups including the WI Farm Bureau, WI Farmers Union, National Farmers Organization – WI, and the Professional Dairy Producers of WI. The bi-partisan legislative hosts of the event included: Rep. Travis Tranel, Sen. Howard Marklein, Rep. Loren Oldenburg, Rep. Todd Novak, Rep. Mark Spreitzer, Rep. Don Vruwink, Rep. Romaine Quinn, Rep. Gary Tauchen, and Sen. Patrick Testin.
Here is the link to the 13-minute video that provides an abbreviated version of the presentation that Dr. Stephenson gave this morning: https://dairymarkets.org/PubPod/Podcast/Misc/SupplyManagement/Short.html
