Session 4

Session 4-Illinois and DC

David Dewit

The topic of this journey was Federal Legislation. We traveled first to Green field Illinois and met with the Elanco Rep. We learned about all the things that Elanco is doing to benefit the dairy industry as a whole. We then traveled to Washington, D.C. We had two full days of visiting with politicians who were on our side.

·         Brian Billbrae rep. Andrew Lund

·         Debbie Jessup a rep for Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard.

·         Kristen Glenn rep for Tom McClintock

·         John Lowry for Joe Bacha

·         Lillian McFarlan and Devin Rhinerson rep Senator Diane Feinstein

·         Staff Member from Senator Barbara Boxer

During these meetings we firmly pressed these reps to understand the problems we has farmers face, and we gave possible solutions as well.

The following day we were back at the Capitol meeting with Kyle Lombardi, rep for Congressman McCarthy and others. We did get the opportunity to walk to Kim Altons office who is a representative for Diane Feinstein and got to voice concerns about labor laws.

After meeting these people I had a better understanding of how this system works. If you don’t speak up you will be ignored. Influences revolve around wealth and opinions. WUD is fighting many issues underground. We should all have an appreciation for the things they do than only a few get to see first hand.

Session 3

Session 3-Modesto

David Dewit

Our third session was in Modesto at the WUD headquarters. This session would be about California milk Pricing. The fist presenter would be WUD economist Annie AcMoody.  She spoke about how milks is priced in this state. The second presenter was Dr. William Schiek, he told us about the domestic and global outlook concerning dairy products. That night at diner we met Ray Sousa who was a past president and board member of WUD. Ray had a  lot of life experience about the dairy industry and it was interesting to listen to his insight.

The second day we had a meeting with people from CDFA. They were Candace Gates from the dairy marketing branch. She spoke about setting milk prices. Next was Mike Francesconi and the cost production studies and manufacturing cost. Las was Amber Rankin, an Ag Economist, speaking to the California hearing process.  Later that day we me up with John Lee who was the CDFA pooling branch chief, he gave us his Bio and talked about all the things he has done in his career. Don Shippelhoute gave us information about all of the different pooling operations. I enjoyed listening to Shippelhoute, as he has encountered obstacles and had found interesting solutions for them.

The final day was a meeting with WUD CEO, Mike Marsh. Mr. Marsh told us the current state of issues, and what the organization was doing about them. Next, Eric Erba from CDI tols us some facts about production base, plant capacity, and transportation allowances. The last presenter was Tiffany La Mendola of Bliming and Associates, with her tool on Margin Management.

On our way to Gallo

On our way to Gallo to check out their sustainable operation and we couldn't be more excited!