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Since we live in a global economy (like it or not), the relative value of the U.S. dollar is important to dairy farmers.
On the one hand, imports of most dairy products will be curbed. But, exports of grains, particularly soy and corn, will be driven by a low U.S. dollar. So, don't count on cheap grain anytime in the near future.
The problem we have at the farm level is that the focus and efforts of our "dairy leaders" is misguided. As you correctly point out, we shouldn't expect cheap grain anytime in the near future, but it's not the dollar that is causing that, it's the idiots in DC who subsidize ethanol and biofuel production, raising our corn and other feed stuffs. We focus on Foundations for the Future and worrying about the CME and support prices, and basically ignore the reason we can't make any money at the farm level. I remember many times in my career where $1.45 cheese and $1.80 butter made for a good living milk cows, but now with the government screwing up the feed prices by encouraging ethanol and using my taxes to do it, cheese would have to be at $2.00 and butter at $2.50 to be able to squeeze out a living with these government caused corn prices.
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