Dairy Farmers Concerned About Japan Trade Deal

Dairy Farmers Concerned About Japan Trade Deal

Rick Worthington
Rick Worthington
Dairy Farmers Concerned About Japan Trade Deal

With the farm and ranch report, I'm Rick Worthington. Japan and the United States have signed a trade agreement. The deal is believed to be good news for U.S. farmers who have been hit hard by the trade wars with China. However, some in the industry say the trade agreement between the U.S. and Japan does not appear to have a lot in it for U.S. dairy farmers. Chris Galen with the National Milk Producers Federation explains.

Well, there are some details that have not been publicly finalized. So there are still some things that we need to see happen before we can pronounce a final judgment on the deal. What we have told the administration is that we need to continue working on the terms of this agreement with Japan because it is such a large market. And the important thing is that there are other nations that already have relationships with Japan, trade deals and so forth. And the U.S. cannot be placed at a competitive disadvantage with countries like New Zealand, because if that becomes baked in and they have better access than our U.S. farmers have, then that will be a lost opportunity in terms of reaching the Japanese consumer.

Galen also talked about the signup numbers for the new dairy margin coverage program.

Well, we saw the official tally here at the beginning of October. It's about 23000 farms have enrolled for 2019. I should say about half of those are signed up just for 2019. The other half of the 23000 are signed up for the full duration of the farm bill, which is through twenty twenty three.

The new program will pay out more than $300 million this year.

Previous ReportFarm Conservation Efforts
Next ReportTractor Safety Reminder