A few dairy farmers want to alter how part of their checkoff funds are used.
According to Cyndi Hammond, their members would prefer the option of using checkoff funds to purchase milk and dairy products for charitable donations. “Our promotional dollars are really not being used like they should, and there are no real results in regard to how that money is being spent.”
For every hundredweight of milk, the dairy checkoff levies a fifteen-cent fee, with some of the funds going to national campaigns and some to Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin. According to Hammond, the checkoff should better inform customers about the antiviral properties of whole milk and its other health advantages. She adds that they would like to see the checkoff buy more products. “When the price goes down, then, we’re buying, and we’re buying fresh dairy products and donating them. It’s been going on and it’s phenomenal regarding how many members we’ve had in the last twelve years and the number of pounds of raw milk we’ve moved to donation.”
The Dairy Pricing Association, according to Hammond, wants to see a permanent shift of two cents from the current checkoff to go into buying the dairy donations, which helps support milk pricing at the farm gate.
The Commodity Credit Corporation was able to buy dairy goods according to the Dairy Production Stabilisation Act of 1983, and according to Hammond, there have been no modifications or additions to the law since it was passed.
