Representative Dedeaux Looks for "Promised Land"

Mississippi dairy farmers are facing an unprecedented crisis that threatens the dairy industry in Mississippi. Extreme weather related and financial hardships have eliminated profitability, eroded equity in their dairy operations, and are forcing family farms onto the auction block.

In 1985, Mississippi had 840 dairy farms and 87,000 dairy cows. This number declined steadily until 2005 to approximately 234 farms before Katrina. Since Katrina, that number has fallen to 177. The current trend will soon result in the loss of the entire state's dairy industry that generated $253.1 million in economic activity in 2005.

In the 1980's, the federal government, in an effort to stabilize national milk prices and supply, promulgated the Federal Milk Marketing Order. This regulation has had a devastating effect on dairymen in the low milk producing southeastern states, while giving an unfair advantage to dairymen in other states.

Essentially, dairy farmers in Mississippi are having to bear the transportation costs of their competitors in other states, putting Mississippi dairy farmers in an inescapable conundrum. The loss of our dairy industry will have a lasting impact on consumers. If less milk is produced locally, more will have to be transported in, requiring the consumer to pay more for milk.

The quantity of milk produced in Mississippi fell by 57% from 1990 to 2006. Mississippi dairymen cannot produce enough milk to meet the demand of their own state which is currently labeled "dairy deficient" by the United States Department of Agriculture. Mississippi dairy farmers, by federal ordinance, must themselves pay the cost of having milk shipped into the state to address the fresh dairy product shortage. This, combined with Katrina and the increases in feed and energy costs, have precipitated this crisis.

State Representative Dirk Dedeaux has introduced two pieces of legislation aimed at reviving the state's dairy industry. The first is a state tax credit that would refund much of the money that the federal government holds out of farmers' milk checks in the form of a fuel surcharge. The second measure is a bill to expand the states' emerging crops fund to meet the loan needs of farms distressed by Hurricane Katrina or which need to modernize their equipment.

Dedeaux told fellow lawmakers in an Agriculture sub-committee hearing, " If you want to live in a land that flows with milk and honey--you need to have some dairy farms." Action is expected on this legislation in coming weeks.

State Representative Dirk Dedeaux can be reached at (601) 359-2428 or P.O. Box 1018, Jackson, MS. 39215-1018.