-April 2,2021-
A letter from Rob Vandenheuvel, Industry Relations official with California Dairies Inc, based in Visalia, calls out the federal program Farmers to Families Food Box program as well intentioned but fraught with unintended consequences for diary farmers.
“The unintended consequence of the Food Box program was a huge imbalance from one farmer to the next based solely on the type of end product their milk is converted into.”
“For cheesemakers and the farmers that supply their milk, they saw a strong price recovery in 2020 as cheese was required in each Food Box. Cheese that was “stranded” in inventory due to closures in the restaurant and food service sectors suddenly found a home in the boxes. While that was a success story for those farms, their neighbors that supply milk bottlers or butter manufacturers saw no such recovery. This huge competitive disadvantage was not driven by market forces, but based on winners and losers created by the structure of the Food Box program.
Combined with depooling in the Federal Order system – another issue that USDA’s AMS staff is well-aware of – this imbalance resulted in Farmer A receiving as much as 70 percent more than Farmer B received for the same quality and quantity of milk. It was truly a make-or-break difference from farm to farm.”