Secretary Sonny Purdue took heat over a statement that small dairy farms can’t survive in today’s economic climate. He clarified that statement in an exclusive interview with RFD-TV,
“The question was ‘can 40 and 50 cow dairies survive?’ and the honest answer is, its tough, you have to make a decision, and some may and some may not, and that was the reality of the question. When it was phrased in the article it was like I was telling them to get out or get big and that’s not really the context of it. If you listen to the whole conversation I acknowledged the reality of the economic duress dairymen have been under and its really tough.”
Secretary Perdue also says the 2018 Farm Bill is better than the 2014 version for dairies and says the USDA is committed to helping both large and small farms improve sustainability and profitability.
