A proposal from President Donald Trump to close the U. S. southern border with Mexico spurred a united dairy front as NMPF, member cooperatives and other groups including the U.S. Dairy Export Council spoke out against the concept. The effort added crucial agricultural voices to a torrent of criticism against the plan, after which the president said he would delay any closure and pursue other ways to punish Mexico for what he considers lax border enforcement.

A border closing would cut off U.S. milk-producer access to its largest dairy export market. While the President has postponed further action on a full closure for now, reports indicate that trade is being impacted by a slowdown in the processing of goods crossing the border due to the reassignment of some CBP staff from trade to immigration responsibilities.

“The dairy industry is suffering through one of its worst economic periods ever,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF). “Low milk prices are already creating hardship for farmers, and further supply disruptions would only prolong producer difficulties.” More than seven dairy farms close each day in the United States, according to data from the USDA.

“Dairy exporters already are suffering from diminished access to export markets due to high tariffs and lack of progress on U.S. trade agreements,” noted Tom Vilsack, president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). “Closing the U.S. southern border to Mexico would be a gut punch that could set the industry back by a decade or two.”

NMPF member cooperatives, including Dairy Farmers of America, FarmFirst Dairy Cooperative and United Dairymen of Arizona, also spoke out against the proposal, expressing concerns shared by other agriculture sectors that also rely on exports to prosper.

Mexico is U.S. dairy’s largest export customer, purchasing $1.4 billion in 2018. A border closing would jeopardize $3.8 million of U.S. dairy products that travel each day to Mexico, which is the largest customer for U.S. milk powder, cheese and butterfat. 2018 was a record year for U.S. sales of nonfat dry milk/skim milk powder and butterfat to Mexico, while milk-protein concentrate sales reached a 10-year high.

Every $1 of U.S. dairy exports to Mexico generates $2.50 of economic activity in the United States, according to a study by Informa Economics.

The conclusion of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement negotiations late last year was welcome news for dairy — but with ratification still pending in all three nations, it was only a step in a journey not yet complete.

The USMCA would improve U.S. dairy’s trade outlook on several levels, including restored certainty with Mexico that includes continued duty-free shipping to our largest export market. The agreement also advances dairy’s trade relationship with Canada, incorporating much-needed reforms to its controversial dairy pricing system and expanding access for US dairy exports to Canada.

However, the USMCA must still be ratified by the legislative bodies of all three nations before taking effect. NMPF staff has (have?) emphasized in meetings with congressional offices the need to quickly approve the treaty to retain and expand export opportunities that will benefit America’s dairy farmers.

NMPF has also urged a swift end to U.S. Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum and its corresponding Mexican retaliatory tariffs on U.S. cheese exports – which some key leaders in Congress are saying must be dealt with to ensure successful passage of USMCA.

NMPF has developed a one-page handout on the USMCA that conveys the importance of this trade agreement to the dairy industry in simple-to-understand terms. NMPF is encouraging dairy cooperatives and farmers to reach out to policymakers and amplify the message that Congress should support passage of USMCA and urge the Administration to swiftly resolve the lingering metal tariffs dispute with Mexico.

The importance of maintaining dairy’s trusted trade partnership with Mexico and seizing the trade advancements made in USMCA demands that Congress pass this important agreement.

Effectively representing the interests of the nation’s dairy farmers and their cooperatives requires a balance of short-, intermediate-, and long-term efforts. Nowhere is that principle more evident than in our fight against fake milk and milk products – and it motivates why we’re opening another chapter in a saga we believe will have a successful conclusion.

While the dairy industry has gone through booms and busts, advances and setbacks, the fake-dairy product issue has always loomed as one of the sector’s longest-term struggles. We’ve been engaging the FDA on it since at least 1979. Its echoes reach back even further – dairy history buffs may recall regulatory battles more than 80 years ago against plant-based alternatives we now call “margarine.”

But last summer, prompted by our persistent efforts and crystallized by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s famous declaration that “almonds don’t lactate,” fake milk quickly became a hot-button, near-term priority. The FDA (finally) moved, and it triggered an all-hands-on-deck effort as we rallied our members to make sure dairy and its consumers stood united in support of transparency in the marketplace. An FDA request for information on labeling attracted more than 14,000 comments – a docket we won on substance, as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the School Nutrition Association, and a range of others came to our side.

The comment docket is closed now. Scott Gottlieb is moving on from FDA. With the agency’s request for information fulfilled, the most interested commissioner of the past four decades gone, and dairy farmers facing acute economic circumstances that dominate present concerns, one could easily fear that fake milk will return to a back-burner.

We are confident that will not be the case, and we are actively working to make sure it won’t.

Following the FDA docket’s conclusion, we analyzed comments, took a close look at the opposition arguments made within it, and refined our own “Road Map” that we had been working on since last September to resolve the fake-dairy issue. On Feb. 21 we submitted our proposal to the FDA as a Citizen Petition – and the FDA has opened a new docket and  set a comment period for stakeholders with a deadline of Aug. 20, 2019. The Citizen Petition gives the agency what it needs to resolve this issue to the benefit of consumers by improving labeling transparency and truthfulness.

Our key points – the ones the FDA must consider as it fulfills its mission of serving the public interest – include:

• Dairy products are nutritionally superior to its imitators. In addition to pointing out dairy’s role as the ideal package for nine essential nutrients, we also detail emerging science in areas such as protein quality that highlight the advantages of animal-based protein.
• Consumers are being misled about the nutritional value of inferior plant-based products. That’s been evident in every public survey taken on the issue; it was central to the materials we and others submitted to the docket; and frankly, some of our opposition’s comments submitted to the FDA unintentionally but effectively illustrated that point for us, with numerous reference to beverages made of almonds, oats and other plant products as “healthier” when in reality, most of these flavored imitations have clearly inferior nutritional content.
• Public health, and especially the health of children, is compromised with every day of inaction. Reports of nutritional deficiencies among children fed plant-based imitation foods as part of vegan diets were detailed during the FDA comment period. Our petition explains how this phenomenon requires decisive and swift action, given its potential to increase with the proliferation of mislabeled plant-based products inappropriately using dairy terminology.
• The need for FDA to enforce its dairy products Standards of Identity governing the allowable use of dairy terms has grown more acute with marketplace evolution. Our petition updates guidelines for the present-day, clarifying, for example, that products of sheep, goats, and other lactating animals be included in dairy-termed products.
• Requiring plant-based food manufacturers to provide factual and uncontroversial information to clearly inform consumers does not conflict with 1^st Amendment free-speech concerns. Addressing this head-on is one of the most important services of our petition, as it resolves an area of interest explicitly raised by the FDA while defusing the specious arguments of our vegan adversaries, who equate free speech with a license to mislead.

This effort complements our ongoing work to create the best possible environment into which milk producers can sell their products. Along with the new Dairy Margin Coverage program that improves the financial safety net for our farmers and our continued vigilance to expand international markets to boost demand, the fake-milk fight improves farmer fortunes by ensuring that U.S. consumers will choose products in a transparent and truthful marketplace – because we know that when competition is fair, dairy will be recognized as the superior choice that it is.

Our Citizen Petition is only one indicator of continued urgency. Others include the re-introduction of the DAIRY Pride Act in Congress, a bipartisan, bicameral effort led in the Senate by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Jim Risch (R-ID) and in the House by Reps. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Mike Simpson (R-ID). The legislation lets the FDA know that if it doesn’t act, Congress is prepared to demand enforcement of current labeling rules governing plant-based imitators. With the public momentum we have gained in the past year, the road map we have presented to FDA, the efforts of our friends in Congress, and our dogged determination, fake milk labeling is an issue whose time for resolution has arrived.

Because of the nature of government decision-making we can’t quite say resolution will be immediate. We don’t control the FDA, and leadership transitions and competing priorities undeniably consume time. But this issue has never been about one person or one administration. And we believe this matter is now one that will be resolved sooner rather than later.

That’s a key part of how this has shifted from the old days, when we knew that we were right on principle, but opportunities to advance that principle were limited by bureaucratic intransigence. Now, through the hard work and support of the dairy community, as well as our tenacity on this issue, prospects for positive resolution are higher than ever, for good reason. The dairy community must stay engaged with us, and together we will see this through.

ARLINGTON, VA – April 1, 2019 – An administration proposal to close the U. S. southern border with Mexico would send shock waves through the U.S. dairy industry, closing off access to its largest dairy export market, according to leading U.S. dairy organizations. The dairy industry is suffering through one of its worst economic periods ever,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF). “Low milk prices are already creating hardship for farmers, and further supply disruptions would only prolong producer difficulties.” More than seven dairy farms close each day in the United States, according to data from the USDA. “Dairy exporters already are suffering from diminished access to export markets due to high tariffs and lack of progress on U.S. trade agreements,” noted Tom Vilsack, president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). “Closing the U.S. southern border to Mexico would be a gut punch that could set the industry back by a decade or two.” Mexico is U.S. dairy’s largest export customer, purchasing $1.4 billion (USD) in 2018. “There is not a ready alternative market for the millions of gallons of milk that are converted into the thousands of tons of dairy ingredients and cheese we ship to Mexico,” Vilsack said. “It is very difficult to fathom the impact closing the U.S.-Mexico border would have on U.S. agriculture, and both the American and Mexican food industries.” USDEC has spent more than two decades building the market for U.S. dairy products in Mexico. Mulhern and Vilsack noted that as bad as a southern border closing would be for the U.S. dairy industry, it will hurt their friends and colleagues in Mexico even worse, given the dependence of its consumers on U.S. products. “U.S. dairy products are the lifeblood to the Mexican food industry, whose development USDEC and NMPF have helped foster,” Mulhern said. “We cannot condone limiting access to food as a bargaining chip in solving immigration issues,” Vilsack concluded. U.S. Dairy Exports to Mexico at a Glance: ·       In 2018, a record 15.8 percent of U.S. milk production was exported. Mexico was the largest single customer for U.S. dairy exports, with sales of $1.4 billion (USD). ·       U.S dairy exports totaled $5.59 billion (USD) in sales in 2018—an increase of 619 percent since 1995. Mexico and Southeast Asia are America’s top two dairy export markets, accounting for 39 percent of total annual export value. ·       Mexico is the largest customer for U.S. milk powder, cheese and butterfat. 2018 was a record year for U.S. sales of nonfat dry milk/skim milk powder and butterfat to Mexico while milk protein concentrate sales reached a 10-year high. ·       Every $1 of U.S. dairy exports to Mexico generates $2.50 of economic activity in the United States, according to a study by Informa Economics.

 

 

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The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), based in Arlington, Va., develops and carries out policies that advance the well-being of U.S. dairy producers and the cooperatives they collectively own. The members of NMPF’s cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S, milk supply, making NMPF the voice of nearly 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. For more on NMPF’s activities, visitwww.nmpf.org.   The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) is a non-profit, independent membership organization that represents the global trade interests of U.S. dairy producers, proprietary processors and cooperatives, ingredient suppliers and export traders. Its mission is to enhance U.S. global competitiveness and assist the U.S. industry to increase its global dairy ingredient sales and exports of U.S. dairy products. USDEC accomplishes this through programs in market development that build global demand for U.S. dairy products, resolve market access barriers and advance industry trade policy goals. USDEC is supported by staff across the United States and overseas in Mexico, South America, Asia, Middle East and Europe. The U.S. Dairy Export Council prohibits discrimination on the basis of age, disability, national origin, race, color, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, political beliefs, marital status, military status, and arrest or conviction record.

ARLINGTON, Va. – The National Milk Producers Federation today thanked key House and Senate dairy leaders for adding bipartisan momentum to implementing new, greatly needed dairy programs, a top priority for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The letters from the House and Senate to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue urge the department to implement dairy-related provisions of the Farm Bill passed in 2018 as swiftly as possible. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) and senior committee member Representative Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson (R-PA) led the House effort, and Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) led in the Senate. As noted in the letters, the new Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program and other improvements in the new farm bill will provide critical help to dairy farmers this year.

The letters, signed by 77 House members and 38 Senators from both parties, also urge active USDA engagement with farmers on multiple levels, including mailings, phone calls and local meetings, as well as collaboration with stakeholders including state officials, cooperatives, producer groups and institutions of higher education.

“We commend Chairman Peterson, Rep. Thompson, Ranking Member Stabenow, Senator Blunt, and their numerous colleagues for drawing attention to the difficulties dairy farmers are enduring,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation. “Implementing dairy programs in a fast and farmer-friendly manner is important to NMPF members. We applaud Secretary Perdue for his efforts to commit to a timeline that gives farmers some certainty for financial planning. We need to ensure that outreach is broad and that farm-specific issues that arise during implementation are addressed with flexibility.”

“We look forward to working with USDA to continue to best serve our hard-working, economically stressed producers, and we support the congressional support of this process,” Mulhern said.

 

Here’s what farmers are saying about implementation efforts: 

“Our dairy farmers have endured four consecutive years of low prices – both here in Missouri and across the country.  I commend the bipartisan support in Congress for quickly implementing the new dairy provisions of the farm bill, which will be a significant help in times like these.  I’m particularly appreciative of my own Senator, Roy Blunt, for co-leading this effort on the Senate side.  He has been a friend and ally of dairy dating back to his past service in the House.”

– Randy Mooney, Rogersville, Missouri, dairy farmer. Chairman of the Board for NMPF and Dairy Farmers of America. 

“As a constituent dairy farmer of Chairman Peterson’s, I have long appreciated his commitment to standing up for Minnesota’s hardworking dairy farmers. He is a leader on countless issues for dairy and ag, and mostly recently spearheaded efforts to reform dairy policy in the 2018 Farm Bill. The new Dairy Margin Coverage program will make a meaningful difference for all dairy farmers, especially as we head into a fifth consecutive year of low milk prices. I am thrilled the Chairman is leading a bipartisan group of 77 members urging USDA to quickly implement this important program.”

– Steve Schlangen, Albany, Minnesota, dairy farmer. AMPI (Associated Milk Producers Inc.) Chairman of the Board.

“The dairy industry has faced a number of challenges in recent years, ranging from low prices to export challenges to high costs of labor, and Michigan is no exception.  I’m extremely grateful for the work that Senator Debbie Stabenow has done on behalf of dairy farmers in Michigan and across the country to improve dairy policy.  The improvements made in the farm bill build on helpful reforms made last year, and I’m eager to see them implemented as soon as possible.  This bipartisan letter that Senator Stabenow has led helps reinforce this important need.”

– Ken Nobis, St. Johns, Michigan, dairy farmer. NMPF First Vice Chairman.

“Pennsylvania dairy farmers are entering a fifth consecutive year of depressed milk prices.  As a dairy farmer myself, I’ve watched countless neighbors of mine close up shop in recent years during this challenging time.  Rep. GT Thompson has been an outstanding advocate for Pennsylvania’s dairy farmers through his work on the Agriculture Committee.  We look forward to working with him and his colleagues to quickly implement the new Dairy Margin Coverage program, which will provide important benefits to farmers here and around the country.”

– Amanda Condo, Pennsylvania dairy producer. Paul Dotterer & Sons Inc.

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The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), based in Arlington, VA, develops and carries out policies that advance dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. NMPF’s member cooperatives produce the majority of U.S. milk, making NMPF the voice of dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. For more, visit www.nmpf.org.