Dairy Price Reporting

NASS Reinstates Dairy Reports After NMPF Request - December 16, 2011

In October 2011, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) announced that it would cut a number of its statistical reports in anticipation of substantial budget cuts from Congress. In November, Congress voted to give NASS $6 million more than anticipated, and directed the agency to re-evaluate the reports that had been cut. NMPF wrote to Cynthia Clark, NASS’ Administrator on November 29, requesting that she restore the July Cattle report and the annual table containing the national breakdown of dairy farms by size.

On December 8, Dr. Clark wrote back to NMPF to inform us that both the July Cattle report and the Farms, Land in Farms, and Livestock Operations report – which contains the dairy farm size breakdown – would be restored to NASS’ publication schedule. The Cattle report, which is also published in January, provides the only comprehensive data on dairy heifers and cows. (This is the foundation for the monthly cow estimates in the Milk Production report.)

NMPF has also been in discussions with NASS about ensuring the accuracy of its reported alfalfa hay prices.

 

NMPF Urges USDA to Implement Mandatory Inventory Reporting Program - December 4, 2009

In a December 4, 2009 letter to Secretary Vilsack, NMPF reported that recent revisions to the USDA cheese stocks data had caused great concern that the market may have been artificially depressed by inaccurate data. This data came from an unaudited and voluntary survey, despite a decade-old statute calling for mandatory dairy product inventory reporting.

NMPF asked the Secretary to implement the mandatory inventory reporting program required by law.

 

Joint Letter with IDFA - October 10, 2007

NMPF joined the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) in supporting changes in how dairy prices were reported by the government.

In this letter sent to the USDA, NMPF requested that the Agricultural Marketing Service be the agency that collects pricing data, rather than the National Agricultural Statistics Service, which was currently performing that function.

NMPF also asked that USDA adopt electronic price reporting, to improve the speed and flow of data.