Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on Tuesday told his new Dairy Industry Advisory Committee that at some point the dairy industry must get hold of itself. The problem is the Boom and Bust cycle that the industry has been going through. First a herd buildup then plunging prices, which leads to herd reduction and government help, which raises prices leading to herd buildup that starts the cycle again. Vilsack has charged this committee to come up with a solution. "We can't continue to do this bandage approach where we buy a little bit or we increase the price a little bit or we come up with additional resources," Vilsack said. "Relative to the deficit it's just not that easy to raise the price support level, because we need an offset, which means some other aspect of agriculture might suffer." Vilsack says he wants recommendations on what USDA should do by year's end, whether it's regulation or legislation or a combination of both.
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