US Senators Introduce the 2026 Milk from Family Dairies Act
Senator Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, introduced the Milk from Family Dairies Act of 2026 in the US Senate. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who also represents Vermont, is a co-sponsor. The measure is intended to address recurring dairy-price cycles, excess production and the consolidation of processing capacity.
The legislation comes as the number of US commercial dairy farms has contracted sharply. The country has lost more than 70% of such farms since 1997, while the number of operating herds has fallen below 24,000. That total represents a 40% decline since 2017. Advocacy groups say family farms, generally defined in the bill’s discussion as operations milking fewer than 200 cows, continue to receive prices below their full economic costs.
At the centre of the proposal is a federal Dairy Market Stabilization Program. It would seek to align national milk output with domestic consumer demand and introduce tiered price floors based on farm scale. The proposed pricing framework would account for feed, labour and other operating costs, while providing producers with more transparent information about the prices paid for their milk.
The bill also contains provisions for investment in regional dairy infrastructure. Grant programmes administered through the US Department of Agriculture would support the Dairy Business Innovation Initiatives, regional infrastructure projects and local value-added processing. The proposed facilities would include bottling, cut-and-wrap operations and artisan processing sites, allowing producers to use alternatives to large corporate co-operatives and long-distance milk transport.
The sponsors and supporting groups have criticised existing federal measures, including margin-insurance programmes and demand-promotion policies focused on exports, for not delivering lasting income stability to family dairy operations. The bill’s supporters say the proposed market-management system would address supply and pricing within the domestic dairy sector rather than relying primarily on those existing programmes.
More than three dozen agricultural and rural organisations have formally endorsed the measure. They include the National Family Farm Coalition, Farm Aid, the Wisconsin Farmers Union and the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance. The bill is expected to face opposition from large processors and trade groups focused on exports. Its sponsors plan to use it as a marker bill during wider Farm Bill discussions, where it would put domestic supply management and the structure of the US dairy industry on the legislative agenda.
