Farming the mailbox

In this study, GCS identified and quantified all subsidies and benefits available to dairy farmers and processors in the U. S. states at the federal, state and local government level from inputs utilized in milk production to point of sale to the retailer. [...] The USDA Economic Research Service reported the total value of cash receipts from the sale of all U. S. dairy production in 2009 as $31.5 billion and the total value of cash receipts from the sale of all U. S. agricultural commodities as $290.5 billion.4. [...] We estimate that the total value of U. S. Federal support for U. S. dairy in 2009 to be the sum of the total value of support provided under dairy specific programs less the value of selected programs that offer no direct or indirect support to U. S. dairy production plus 10.7% of the total of the remaining USDA program level expenditures for 2009 plus 10.7% of total budgetary resources available [...] To this must be added for the biomass program and for dairy’s share for irrigation infrastructure support from the Department of the Interior budget.11 • The value of support to irrigation infrastructure provided by the Department of the Interior was $1,798,000,000 of which $192,386,000 was allocated to dairy. [...] This document is the Property of Dairy Farmers of Canada 5 © Grey, Clark, Shih and Associates, Limited (2010) PART I The estimated $12.00/cwt support to U. S. dairy production in 2009 was equivalent to: • 53% of cost of production • 94% of the market returns for milk • 1.71 times the net loss per cwt The subsidies to U. S. dairy producers essentially match revenue from the market place.