Continued immigration raids on American dairy farms could send milk prices soaring. Jaime Castaneda, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Trade Policy for the National Milk Producers Federation, says the price of a gallon of milk could possibly approach $8. The Hagstrom Report says Castaneda was part of a panel on immigration at the Consumer Federation of America’s National Food Policy Conference. He estimates 80 percent of the nation’s milk supply comes from dairy farms that employ foreign labor, saying if there’s a continued effort to remove workers, there will be a significant shortage of milk and higher prices. He says the nation’s dairy producers have high expectations that Congress could resolve the farm worker immigration problems. However, he says, “We see what happened with the health insurance fiasco, with the probability of having something pass diminished.” The United Fresh Produce Association notes there is a proposal to move the worker program from the Labor Department to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Robert Guenther, Senior Vice President for Public Policy, asked the panel, “Is there a will to move the farm worker program to the USDA?”
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting news service.
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