NMPF Chairman Charles Beckendorf, a dairy farmer from Tomball, TX, thanked NMPF’s members for their hard work this year on several high profile issues, including immigration reform and world trade talks.  While neither initiative has borne much fruit, Beckendorf said NMPF’s members, through a “commitment to consensus building,” were able to forge strong positions on these topics and work to make farmers’ voices heard.

Beckendorf said that the Federation was successful in 2006 due to the hard work that its members have put toward a variety of endeavors.

Beckendorf also listed several highlights on dairy policy issues for NMPF, including helping pass legislation in Congress to regulate large producer-handler dairies that are undercutting other farms’ milk prices; helping to tighten regulations on low-carb dairy products that also reduce farmers’ prices; and supporting legislation that would clarify the federal rules governing how dairy farm manure is regulated.

He also singled out the Dairy Producer Conclave process as a means to build consensus within the dairy producer community on many of these issues – a process that is critical in light of the fact that Congress is already beginning hearings on the 2007 Farm Bill.

“We head into 2007 with a clear blueprint of the dairy producer community's policy interests and goals,” Beckendorf said, as he praised NMPF’s members for committing to work together now and in the future.

NMPF President and CEO Jerry Kozak also addressed the future needs of the organization in his speech, where he challenged farmers and dairy cooperatives to become more active in their support of NMPF.

“What are you prepared to do to help yourself?  How will you meet the challenges that face us collectively as an industry?,” Kozak asked rhetorically.  In talking about the impact of the World Trade Organization negotiations and the 2007 Farm Bill, Kozak said NMPF’s members need to continue to work harmoniously if the organization is to remain successful.

“We need to maintain a unified front and a uniform message when we deal with our elected officials on farm policy.  United, we can get a great deal accomplished, as we did with the 2002 Farm Bill.  But if we let individual or regional differences prevail, we will not be successful in our efforts,” he explained.

Saying that the dairy producer industry “needs activists, not pacifists,” Kozak highlighted an example where activism is paying dividends, and that is the Cooperatives Working Together self-help program, started in 2003.  He urged members to contribute to the program at the new, higher assessment of 10 cents per hundredweight, a level that will increase the value of CWT to all farmers.  The alternative is that CWT could become ineffectual.

“We need leaders from all the NMPF cooperatives to step up to the plate and steer us away from that unfortunate direction.  We need people to stop thinking solely of themselves, getting a free ride at the expense of others, and standing outside the fire, while most are choosing to do the right thing,” Kozak said.

Despite challenges within the membership, Kozak said “if we make the right decisions during this transition; if we strategically adapt our policies to a changing environment; if we truly become activists and create a team supported by all farmers while committing the resources necessary; if we continue our efforts of self-help such as CWT; then, we should be thoroughly optimistic about our future.”