Australian Trade Agreement

I hope our Australian friends do not take offense at this!!

Has anyone heard of the Australian Trade agreement the president is trying to create? Here in dairy farm country, we are all pretty upset about it!!! It would allow very inexpensive dairy imports to come into the USA. The large dairy corporations do not care where they get their dairy products from, so they buy the cheapest. It is predicted that 1/4 of the country's small family dairy farms could be run out of business in the next five years if this trade agreement happens.

The American Dairy Farm Association is requesting all members to write their congressmen asking them to contact the president, telling him the damage it will do. I'll try to get more datailed information of the website tomorrow.

At a recent sheep info day the speaker stated that 80% of the lamb consumed in the US is imported from New Zealand and Australia and about 1% from Canada. Let the big businesses have their way and these statistics may well be the same for dairy.

Interesting topic this "trade agreement" concept. Here's some current numbers to put it all in perspective.

CIA World Fact Book:

USA exports = $687 billion
imports = $1.165 trillion


Australia exports = $66.3 billion (9.6% of this is to the US)
imports = $68 billion -->18.3% of this is from the US

New Zealand exports = $15 billion (15.5% of this is to the US)
imports = $12.5 billion -->13.6% of this is from the US

Interesting trade arrangements.

Kevin

Here's the link to the info about this trade agreement:

http://www.nmpf.org/newsFlash/index....R&nfID=172