State offers dairy farmers, processors financial lifeline amid crisis
State officials are offering financial help to Wisconsin dairy farms in desperate need of customers and for processors already oversaturated with milk to absorb more.
Gov. Scott Walker, who on Tuesday also weighed in on the international trade tension at the root of the crisis, announced that the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority will temporarily loosen the rules on a revolving capital loan program for dairy farmers and milk processors.
It’s not a long-term solution, state officials say, but it provides another resource for Wisconsin’s dairy farms affected by Grassland Dairy Products Inc., of Greenwood, which informed 67 dairy farms earlier this month, most from Wisconsin and some from Minnesota, it no longer would accept their milk after May 1.
“It’s a way of enhancing their working capital and it’s a better way to get (dairy farmers) through a cash-flow situation when they’re running short on working capital,” said Dan Smith, administrator for agricultural development at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
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