NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern recaps progress made at NMPF’s annual meeting in Denver last week, including unanimous support for a Federal Milk Modernization Order modernization framework. Mulhern also talks about next steps on FMMO modernization and highlights the current popularity of dairy products and their nutritional benefits, noting the highest U.S. per capita consumption since 1959. Mulhern speaks on the “Agriculture of America” podcast.
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga gives an impromptu tour of the Dairy Bar and the Joint Annual Meeting in Denver. From delicious products to critical information, the Dairy Bar has it all — and the meeting itself resulted in gains for dairy producers, as detailed in this interview with RFD-TV.
NMPF has announced its winners for this year’s co-op cheese contest. Yogurt was included for the first time this year. Congratulations to the winners!
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga talks about some of the challenges dairy farmers face, and how they’re facing it together, in an interview with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. As NMPF members gather in Denver this week for the organization’s annual meeting, milk-pricing modernization, sustainability and stewardship, and international trade are all taking the spotlight.
DES MOINES, Iowa — A nutrition expert, an innovative dairy farmer and a global food-security leader shared how animal agriculture and dairy can be part of world climate and hunger solutions in a panel discussion side event at the World Food Prize. The panel also discussed the upcoming U.S. hosting of the 2023 International Dairy Federation World Dairy Summit in Chicago, the world’s biggest global dairy conference.
Panelists include Katie Brown, EdD, RDN, Senior Vice President for Scientific and Nutrition Affairs at National Dairy Council; Suzanne Vold, a dairy farmer near Glenwood, MN; and Jay Waldvogel, Senior Vice President of Strategy and International Development for Dairy Farmers of America and a board member of Global Dairy Platform, an organization that brings together dairy companies, associations, scientific bodies and other partners to collaborate pre-competitively to lead and build evidence on dairy’s role in the diet and show the sector’s commitment to responsible food production.
“To meet the grand challenge of nourishing a growing global population with limited natural resources, dairy is answering the call of providing sustainable, efficient, high-quality nutrition that can be accessed worldwide,” said Brown. “The foods we choose every day contribute to dietary patterns that can promote health and wellness and reduce risk of chronic diseases at all stages across the lifespan. Dairy foods now and in the future will be critical to meeting the challenges malnutrition poses to the planet, just as U.S. dairy will be important to making sure the world is sustainably nourished.”
“In a fragile world, dairy farms are strengthened by their generational focus and family bonds, a truth that’s followed by dairy farmers across the United States as they show global leadership in innovation,” said Vold. “In other words, we care for our cows and protect our resources so that our farms may thrive for generations to come and help nourish the needs of a growing world.”
“The global dairy industry is a one-billion-person community, starting with more than 130 million farmers around the world, with 600 million people living and working on those farms, farms that create 125 million jobs, jobs that are supporting hundreds of millions of other family members, collectively more than a billion people,” said Waldvogel. “The sheer scale alone indicates our role in food security. But even beyond that, if you look at how dairy plays out locally, its nutrition, its shorter supply chains, women-led in many cases, it’s a combination of the sheer size and scale of dairy and its role in food security, but also that local touch where dairy is very much around the corner for the people who need it.”
Panelists also discussed next year’s IDF World Dairy Summit, set for October 16-19, 2023 at Chicago’s McCormick Place conference center. The honor provides an opportunity to showcase the dairy sector’s innovations in sustainability, nutrition and health, standards, safety and quality, to accomplish its purpose of nourishing the world with safe, nutritious and sustainable foods.
The IDF World Dairy Summit provides a vital forum for dairy leaders, experts, farmers, processors, traders and journalists worldwide to discuss how to further advance the collective global dairy sector forward in a positive, sustainable way. Held in the United States for the first time since 1993, this year’s meeting is themed “BE Dairy –Boundless Potential. Endless Possibilities.” U.S. dairy is developing programming that will feature global and industry leaders, experts, scientists, technical specialists, farmers and more, exploring the global dairy sector’s most significant opportunities today and tomorrow.
For more information about the 2023 IDF World Dairy Summit, visit www.idfwds2023.com.
For more information about IDF, visit www.fil-idf.org. For more information about US-IDF, visit www.usidf.org.
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses the special importance of cooperatives as the heart and soul of dairy as part of National Cooperative Month on RFD-TV. Bjerga also previews NMPF’s annual meeting in Denver next week, noting the organization’s leadership on milk-pricing modernization.
The U.S. dairy industry has a long-standing commitment to the nutrition and health of the nation. Ensuring that people have consistent and equitable access to the nutrition they need is a key priority for the National Milk Producers Federation, just like the recent White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health.
Claudia Larson, NMPF senior director of government relations, tells the National Association of Farm Broadcasters that most people know that dairy is nutritious, but not everybody knows the details of dairy’s potential in fighting nutrition insecurity.
Note: This article first appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel.
With this year’s USDA report on per-capita U.S. dairy consumption, the industry has finally moved past the 1960s. In terms of favor with the American public, dairy has returned to 1959.
Sound strange?
It’s true.
The USDA’s annual report on per-capita U.S. dairy consumption released Friday, September 30, saw an emphatic rise in domestic dairy demand, going from 655 pounds per person in 2020 to 667 pounds per person last year. That’s a level of dairy popularity that surpasses 1960, when it was 659 pounds, and is approaching 1959’s consumer appeal of 672 pounds.
In other words, the last time Americans wanted as much dairy as they do today, Elvis was in the Army. And keep in mind, the 1959 population of the United States. then was only slightly more than half of what it is now. And exports, which now take up nearly 20% of domestic production, barely existed back in those days.
So, what does this say about the industry?
What it doesn’t say is that Americans are consuming dairy the same way now as they did then. Fluid milk has continued its slow decline, according to the USDA data. But cheese continues to rise – American-style cheese consumption reached another record last year. And butter – well, butter actually is returning to Eisenhower-era levels, so in that case, a “Back to the Future” comparison may be appropriate.
But even as the dairy product consumption mix shifts over time, the overall positive trajectory – the 2021 gain is the seventh in the past eight years – is clear, and impressive. Despite more and more competition from nondairy competitors . . . despite an increasingly demanding consumer . . . and despite disruptions that range from diet fads to pandemics . . . consumers continue to find dairy increasingly useful, preferable, and important. That’s a tribute to the hard work of dairy farmers and the entire industry. And it’s worth celebrating.
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses the steady rise of butter and cheese consumption over the past decade on RFD-TV. With per-capita U.S. dairy consumption hovering at six-decade highs, butter and cheese have been key drivers of dairy demand. But watch out for sour cream and yogurt when new USDA data comes out Friday, he said.
In a two-part interview with Ag Information of the West, NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga takes on the myths perpetuated by plant-based beverage marketers in the context of such beverages’ declining sales. “If you read some of this media coverage in the last few years, you would have thought that cows were on their way to going extinct,” Bjerga said. “I think the cows are alive and well.” Part 1 is here, part 2 is here.
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses the importance of milk to school nutrition programs in an interview with RFD- TV. According to consumer data, about 80 percent of the milk consumed by school-age children at home is whole or 2 percent milkfat varieties, neither of which are part of federal school nutrition programs.
Much like plant-based imitators, precision fermentation technology is a sector working to create so-called animal-free dairy products. However, Clay Detlefsen, National Milk Producers Federation Senior Vice President and Staff Counsel, says a real dairy product cannot be made with precision fermentation technology. “We’re seeing a lot of folks right now really misleading the public as to what they’re doing. You cannot make a real dairy product with fermentation technology,” he said in an interview with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters.
