WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Farmers' MILC Subsidy Checks on the Way
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Saint Albans, Vermont - April 2, 2009
Dairy farmers are due to get some relief now that a federal subsidy program is ready to go. The checks help farmers when the price they get for milk goes down.
Following a delay that had some farmers wondering where the money went, the federal government has begun sending out checks under the program known as the Milk Income Loss Contract, or MILC. Officials say just under a thousand Vermont farms are expected to get their checks in the mail within a week, for a total of close to $2 million out of $150 million nationwide.
But Rachel Cadieux of the federal Farm Service Agency notes that it will not be a cure-all for financially-strapped farmers, because they can only get so much money a year. "We do have a few farms in Vermont that actually reach that maximum in just a couple of months," she said. "So rather than getting compensation over a full year of possibly low milk prices, they would only get it for those couple of months."
The first subsidy checks are for the month of February. The checks total a $1.51 per hundred pounds up to a maximum of just under three million pounds. It doesn't take a large farm very long to reach the maximum.
The checks were delayed by a problem with calculating an adjustment that takes into account the price of cow feed. But Tom Gates of the Saint Albans Cooperative Creamery says it may have been worth the wait. The feed adjuster kicked in more money. "In the month of February for example, that payment of a dollar fifty-one is approximately thirteen percent higher than it would have been had there not been a feed cost adjuster," he said.
There's another program, paid for by a dime surcharge on farmers' milk, called the Cooperatives Working Together buyout. It's the seventh year in a row that it's been offered, in which farmers in financial trouble agree to get rid of all their milkers in a move to cut down on production oversupply.
Gates said, "Yesterday the Cooperatives Working Together management team just announced that there is gong to be another herd retirement and applications for that will be accepted through May First."
Officials say the MILC checks can be expected the first week of each month as long as prices stay under the trigger level. The March check will come in May, the April check in June, etc.
Unfortunately, neither the MILC subsidy nor the CWT herd buyout will keep farmers from losing money. But the subsidy will help some survive until prices improve, possibly in the fall.
Andy Potter - WCAX News
