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A study in South Dakota showed CRP acres to be the least beneficial to =
soil health. The best beneficial method of land management for soil =
health in the study, was managed rotational grazing.
But in order to revitalize US animal ag., you must have a business =
plan that bank loan officers determine will pay them back. A long-term =
investment in fencing, new or retrofit parlors, lanes, water systems, =
contracted sources of supplemental corn silage, hay and winter feed, =
etc. must all pencil out to the cash flow that makes lenders =
comfortable. That does not happen when you have the current US dairy =
pricing system, in which dairy imports drive down our milk prices which =
is exactly what the IDFA wants to happen. And the IDFA lobbyists in =
Washington DC work very hard to keep the system exactly so they can =
lower their raw material prices.
I am old enough to have witnessed the decimation of the WI dairy =
industry from its golden age of the 70's to its dismantling in the 80s. =
The results were devasting upon rural communities, rural businessses, =
societal benefits, school districts, tax base, processing infastructure =
and much more. No, the pre-80s system wasn't perfect but we pretty =
much killed the patient when all that was needed were a few hang-nails =
adjusted. We went from a dairy surplus country to a dairy deficit =
country and have remained so since. We must stop stacking the deck =
against domestic dairy production. Land that once benefited from =
having dairy cattle manure on it, ended up converted to cash cropping, =
and while today's conservation tillage has corrected much of what went =
wrong, there still is no better soil conditioner than livestock manure. =
And there are many acres best used for grazing that end up cropped =
because of our cheap food policy reliance upon foreign imports.
Dave G.
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