MADISON, Wis. -- The president of the national Farmer's Union Milk Marketing Cooperative said Thursday a U.S. agreement to sell surplus butter to New Zealand has resulted in sales of butter to the Soviet Union.
Stewart Huber of Clintonville, Wis., said New Zealand, which signed an agreement last summer to buy 100,000 metric tons of U.S. butter stocks at 70 cents a pound, is selling some of its own butter reserves to the Soviet Union.
And he said New Zealand is selling that butter at a higher price than it is paying the United States for surplus butter.
'This is exactly what we said would happen when the U.S.-New Zealand agreement was announced last summer,' Huber said.
'New Zealand is using U.S. butter to meet the needs of its other foreign customers, thus freeing up their own stocks for export to the Soviets.'
There had been a clause in the pact that said New Zealand could not sell butter it got from the United States to the Soviet Union.
Huber said the federal government has verified that New Zealand has agreed to sell the Soviet Union at least $350 million worth of butter and dried milk in the next four years.
He said the Soviet Union will pay $2,250 per ton or $1.02 per pound for butter. He said the price is 32 cents per pound more than the U.S. is getting from New Zealand for the 220 million pounds of U.S. government butter stocks New Zealand is buying.
'It is abundantly clear that we could have sold our butter for an additional 70 million dollars,' Huber said. 'Once again though, we ended up shooting ourselves in the foot.'
