(Springfield, MO) -- Beefing up the struggling agriculture industry, that's what a new proposal from the Missouri Department of Agriculture is hoping to accomplish.

It's called Meat the Need.  The idea is to turn a surplus of dairy and pork products into a profit, while helping the needy.

If you've got questions about prize-winning hogs, farmer Wade Evans has you covered.  But when it comes to making a living off them, Evans says he's getting swindled.

"It's not possible anymore to run an operation and not work off the farm because the prices are slow," Evans said.

The prognosis isn't much better Faith Letterman' son. She says he's buried in debt after trying to start a dairy farm.

"When you go to the milk barn, when you lose money everyday," Letterman said.  "It takes the fun out of it."

If state leaders have their way though, they'll bring the merry back to dairy.

The Missouri Department of Agriculture is working with other states to get its hands on stimulus cash. The plan is to buy hundreds of millions of pounds in surplus cheese, pork and poultry. That purchase would stabilize falling prices.

"I've raised hogs pretty much my whole life," Evans said. "$40 feeder pigs right now is the same price I was getting when I was getting in high school."

All of the surplus food would also help the public. The government would donate it to food banks, school lunch programs and foreign military assistance programs.

"The government stepping in and buying the surplus and giving it to the needy could be a very good program and help out the demand for our products," Letterman said.

State agriculture leaders say there was unanimous support program for this nationwide.  But, help may be a couple months out.  The earliest the government could approve the program is in about a month.  Buying programs would start a month or two from that point.

Some farmers support this program, while others say this is too little too late.