50 



Is he still here? 



Would you like to submit your statement for the record and then 

 tell us what you can within the available time? I apologize but it 

 was beyond our control. 



STATEMENT OF STEWART G. HUBER, PRESIDENT, FARMERS 

 UNION MILK MARKETING COOPERATIVE 



Mr. Huber. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 



Members of the committee, my name is Stewart Huber. I am a 

 dairy farmer in Wisconsin. I am also president of the Farmers 

 Union Milk Marketing Cooperative. I appear here today on behalf 

 of that membership of 10,880 in eight Upper Midwestern States. 



We appreciate the opportunity to appear here today. Unfortu- 

 nately, I do not have written testimony to distribute. My remarks 

 are going to be off the cuff. We will provide the committee later 

 with testimony. 



At the outset, let me say that the dairy situation in the Upper 

 Midwest as the price situation has deteriorated dramatically in the 

 last 9 months. The cheese price has fallen out of bed. It has gone 

 down dramatically. The milk price, the M-W price for March is ex- 

 pected to be at the 10/30 level with some people predicting it going 

 all the way down to the support level. 



Many good farmers who have done very well in past tough times 

 are in tough shape. They have gone to their lenders and have been 

 told that under the pricing situation their situations will no longer 

 cash flow. They are very disturbed and angry. They want some- 

 thing to get done. 



Obviously, if we're going to deal with price it seems that there 

 are three areas you have to deal with: Supply, demand, and exter- 

 nal forces. I know the committee does not deal very often with the 

 demand side. It is a little bit out of your purview. It is primarily 

 the responsibility of farmers themselves. We have allowed dairy to 

 be pictured as an excessively expensive farmer-monopolized com- 

 modity that is highly subsidized and maybe even dangerous to your 

 health. That is too bad because the truth could have been our very 

 best public relations. 



But of some concern to this committee I would think would be 

 the effort to recall the National Dairy Board. There is a petition 

 going around to get that job done. I would not speculate at this 

 time if there was a referendum of how it would come down. If a 

 check-off program is to continue, however, we would suggest to the 

 committee that you investigate the possibility of assessing imports 

 on the same basis that our domestic producers are assessed. 



We would also suggest that you also look at possibly revising the 

 generic program for advertising to also include dually funded 

 branded advertising. We think the search should go to looking to 

 the desires and needs of a newly ethnic public population that has 

 not been too well served by our programs in the past. 



Let me say that the Dairy Export Incentive Program that was 

 initiated by the former Secretary in the last days of the past ad- 

 ministration has alleviated some of the pressure on the supply side. 

 Maybe a little bit of it will help the supply side. We know that that 

 is not a long-term fix, but we did appreciate it because the situa- 



