Not surprisingly, dairy producers and processors are split in their support of a bill to change the milk pricing formula from what USDA proposed in the final rule on milk marketing order reform.  The latest groups to weigh in with opinions are Dairy Farmers of America who support the bill and the International Dairy Foods Association members who oppose it.

DFA says it supports the bill to replace USDA's modified Option 1B milk pricing formula with a measure known as Option 1A.  Option 1B, they say, would reduce dairy producer income by nearly $200 million a year.

DFA board Chairman Herman Brubaker said the USDA decision on a modified 1B is unfair to the majority of dairy farmers and will mean further economic hardship for them.

The decision "will lower prices to dairy farmers in the Northeast, Southeast and Southwest parts of the United States," Brubaker said, "areas of strong demand for fluid milk and a continuing high rate of exodus by dairy farmers."

IDFA President and CEO Linwood Tipton, however, is quoted by Farm Journal's Dairy Today saying the USDA option "has turned milk pricing in an economically justified direction" even if it "failed to reduce the complexity of the six-decades old system" for milk marketing orders.  The final rule "should not be changed by the kind of narrow, economic self interested reflected" in the legislation.