NMPF boss suggests new direction for dairy industry
The first area Kozak addressed was immigration reform, since “the issue of a stable and available workforce is of paramount importance to the dairy industry,” he said. “No other issue has the potential to cause catastrophic results with respect to the production and marketing of milk in this country than the failure of our leaders in Washington to pass meaningful immigration reform.” He added that while NMPF has been supportive of efforts to achieve such reform, NMPF’s members need to come together behind those efforts in 2009.
In his second point, Kozak stressed the need to reform and revitalize the Federal Milk Marketing Order program. He proposed “replacing the make allowance structure with a competitive pay price that would allow processing plants to pay what they must for the milk they procure.” NMPF’s Federal Order task force had not yet come up with a way to do this, but Kozak was convinced “that it is the right thing to do.”