Author: Alan Bjerga
NMPF’s Bjerga on Growing Momentum for FMMO Modernization
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses how the support of the American Farm Bureau Federation is a powerful statement of farmer consensus for NMPF’s Federal Milk Marketing Order modernization plan currently before USDA. Bjerga also talks about the industry’s active discussions on fighting misinformation about dairy, in an interview with RFD-TV’s Christina Loren.
A Critical Moment Arrives on the FMMO Scene
By Jim Mulhern, President and CEO, NMPF
Jim Mulhern, NMPF President and CEO
The march to milk-pricing modernization reached another milestone this month, as the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) submitted to USDA our comprehensive proposal for Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) reform.
After more than 150 meetings over nearly two years, a strong consensus has emerged among producers and our allies for changes that hold benefits for farmers of all sizes, in all regions, and for the broader industry that, together with producers, serves wholesome, nutritious products to consumers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
A lot of work has gone into this effort. We have examined the program in great detail and came up with a plan that modernizes and updates Federal Milk Marketing Orders so they can work better for today’s dairy industry.
Some key highlights:
- Returning to the “higher of” Class I mover.
- Discontinuing the use of barrel cheese in the protein component price formula.
- Updating milk component factors for protein, other solids, and nonfat solids in the Class III and Class IV skim milk price formulas.
- Updating the Class I differential price system to reflect changes in the cost of delivering bulk milk to fluid processing plants.
- Updating dairy product manufacturing allowances contained in the USDA milk price formulas.
- Developing a process to ensure make-allowances are reviewed more frequently through legislation directing USDA to conduct mandatory plant-cost studies every two years.
- Extending the current 30-day reporting limit to 45 days on forward-priced sales on nonfat dry milk and dry whey to capture more export sales in the USDA product price reporting.
The first five of these are part of our proposal before USDA. We’re seeking the make-allowance review via the farm bill and the forward-pricing plan through separate federal rulemaking.
The components work together
It’s important to note how much the elements of our proposal rely on one another to succeed. Take the make-allowance, for example. It hasn’t had a meaningful update in 15 years. It’s a key priority of our hearing request, and it’s of intense interest to some. But it still needs to be addressed in a way that benefits all. Handling that issue in isolation would have the effect of reducing milk prices to farmers, a non-starter in a program that’s ultimately supported by a vote from producers.
That’s why we have the make allowance issue in our proposal, but one that’s included along with other necessary updates to milk pricing help economically offset our proposed make allowance adjustment, by bringing pricing formulas up-to-date and minimizing disruption to markets.
Modernizing the Federal Milk Marketing Order system has been due for some time; the pandemic experience, which exposed fault lines in the system, underscored just how necessary this effort has been and created the impetus for change. We’ve been deliberate in our approach because we wanted to make sure that we addressed the concern that Agriculture Secretary Vilsack stated well over a year ago when he said it was important to have consensus within the producer community.
We have achieved that consensus, and we believe we have sent USDA a strong signal — both in the thoroughness of our proposal and our depth of support among producers — that our comprehensive proposal is the proper basis for FMMO hearings and a path toward modernization.
And we’ll need to maintain that consensus throughout the process. As we move forward toward a hearing, we’ll continue listening to any concerns and providing any information that’s helpful for progress. Please don’t hesitate to write to the special address we’re using so that staff can respond to your questions. Thank you for your help and support.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on May 11, 2023.
New FMMO Will Work Better for Farmers, Mulhern Says
NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern says the industry need a modernized Federal Milk Marketing Order that works better for dairy farmers, in an interview with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. “We’re really excited that is a plan that will point a way toward a much brighter future for us dairy industry,” Mulhern said.
NMPF’s Mulhern Explains FMMO Modernization
NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern explains the importance of modernization to the Federal Milk Marketing Order system and the benefits it hold from farmers to consumers in an interview with AgriTalk, a daily national conversation about the latest issues impacting agriculture and rural America. NMPF’s proposal to update the system, which governs milk pricing, is currently before USDA.
NMPF’s Bjerga Discusses Benefits of Milk-Price Modernization
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communication discusses how the Federal Milk Marketing Order Modernization plan the organization submitted to USDA this week would create a firmer foundation for the U.S. dairy industry, with farmers being paid a price that better reflects the quality of their milk and sharing their price risk more equitably with processors. Ultimately, once needed updates are fully in place, everyone will benefit from milk that’s valued appropriately across the industry, he said. Bjerga speaks with Mike Pearson on the Agriculture of America podcast.
NCIMS Collaborates on Grade A Milk Safety
By Miquela Hanselman, Regulatory Affairs Manager, NMPF
The 2023 National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS) was held in Indianapolis from April 3 to 7. The gathering once again highlighted the successful collaboration between the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS)/Food and Drug Administration (FDA), state regulators, and dairy industry representatives in an ongoing effort to promote and protect a safe supply of Grade A milk and milk products.
Since it began in 1950, the conference serves as a model program of stakeholder cooperation. It brings together all affected parties to develop and maintain an effective and efficient system of regulating the interstate shipment of milk and milk products to ensure the safest milk supply possible.
The conference is held biannually to update the Grade A Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO). The PMO, of course, regulates the interstate shipment of milk and milk products, outlining the standards for Grade A raw milk for pasteurization, ultra-pasteurization, aseptic processing and packaging, retort processed after packaging or fermented high-acid, shelf-stable processing, and packaging. The PMO affects every dairy farmer in the United States.
Prior to the NCIMS conference, proposals are submitted to update the PMO. Those proposals are then discussed and voted on at the conference by committees, councils, and finally state delegates. From there, FDA has the choice to concur or nonconcur. The 2023 conference featured more than 400 attendees — the most in its history — after taking a four-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. FDA, state regulators, and industry representatives submitted 72 proposals for the conference. Those proposals touched on everything from water testing to the addition of kefir to determining how to handle yogurt parfaits. Below is an overview of three proposals NMPF believes are significant for dairy farmers:
Proposal 207, submitted by the National Milk Producers Federation, would require a 48-hour notice prior to on-farm inspection. Reasons for this include the risks to human health following the COVID-19 pandemic, the farm’s biosecurity, and overall personnel safety. The proposal was amended at the conference and passed through the delegates to be assigned to a standing or ad-hoc committee to review specific sections of the PMO that reference on-farm biosecurity. Summary thoughts: This is an important first step in recognizing the importance of biosecurity measures on dairy farms and will hopefully lead to further discussion of inspection notices.
Proposal 218, submitted by the Methods for Making Sanitation Ratings committee, backed eliminating the evaluation of a milking time inspection program from the calculation of enforcement ratings for dairy farms. This proposal did not make any changes or expectations of milk time inspections in Sections 5 or 6 of the PMO. The justification for the removal of the milking time inspection program was that it wasn’t being done, giving dairy farms an automatic credit of 5 points. The proposal passed as amended through the delegates to evenly redistribute the weight of those 5 points among the remaining items evaluated when calculating the enforcement rating score for dairy farms. Summary thoughts: NMPF is concerned about the unintended consequences of the reallocation.
Proposal 301, submitted by the National Milk Producers Federation, provided a definition of equivalence for the USPHS/FDA responsibility to determine whether a foreign country’s regulatory program and government oversight of that program has an equivalent effect on the safety of the regulated milk or milk product. The term “equivalence” is important for international trade; unfortunately, the PMO has long lacked a definition. This proposal passed through the delegates as amended to include a definition more like that of the World Trade Organization. Defining equivalence provides clarity for foreign countries wishing to participate in the PMO. Summary thoughts: This proposal sends an important message to FDA on the importance of transparency when analyzing equivalence for foreign countries.
Future plans
For the 40 proposals that the state delegates passed, FDA will choose to concur or not concur. From there, a new edition of the PMO will be made available. The every-other-year conference will be held in Minneapolis in 2025.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on April 17, 2023.
The World Dairy Summit is Coming to Chicago
By Shawna Morris, Senior Vice President, Trade, National Milk Producers Federation and U.S. Dairy Export Council
This fall the world will be coming to America’s doorstep. And the entire U.S. dairy sector is poised to shine.
Coming off a string of record export years, U.S. dairy will host the International Dairy Federation (IDF) World Dairy Summit in Chicago from October 16 to 19. It’s the first time the summit — the globe’s premier dairy event — has been held in the United States in 30 years.
Over the last few years, new international dynamics are bringing seismic change to the global dairy industry. Governments around the world are now more aggressively trying to balance climate change mitigation efforts with advancing food security in the developing world. Protectionism and distorted trade arrangements have thrown certain markets out of balance, and global supply chains have still yet to fully recover from the pandemic.
These and dozens of other topics will be covered in depth at this year’s World Dairy Summit — just a short drive (or a domestic plane ride) away from your farm.
IDF each year brings together more than 1,000 participants from throughout the global dairy community to learn about the host country’s dairy sector while discussing the industry’s latest developments, exploring areas of common ground on policymaking, and highlighting new, groundbreaking innovations. The summit offers a prime opportunity for U.S. dairy to showcase its world-class manufacturing and sustainability practices as well high-quality, American-made dairy products.
With the many exciting and innovative developments underway in the American dairy sector, the summit presents perfect timing to invite the world to learn more from the United States. All major U.S. dairy organizations, as well as several of our leading cooperators and processors, are committed to getting this done and collectively putting our best foot forward as we welcome visitors from around the world. It should be a fantastic event for attendees and demonstrate how U.S. dairy is a global leader.
The promise for dairy that can be fulfilled by U.S. leadership in the global sector reflects the 2023 Summit’s theme of “BE Dairy: Boundless Potential, Endless Possibilities.” Beyond the U.S. spotlight, the conference also will speak to the global dairy industry’s incredible promise — what it means for the millions of people whose livelihoods are supported by the dairy industry and the billions more who rely on dairy products as readily available, sustainable sources of nutrition.
Attendees will be greeted with over 25 thematic sessions, featuring more than 100 global and industry leaders, experts, scientists, technical specialists, farmers, and more, who will explore the global dairy sector’s most significant trends and opportunities to thrive. In addition to the wide variety of insights, sponsors’ and exhibitors’ products will take center stage at a concurrent expo where participants can taste samples of the wide range of what U.S. dairy has to offer and hear the diverse stories of American dairy farms and companies. Attendees will also be able to tour farms and dairy facilities in Illinois and surrounding states to experience firsthand the quality, innovation, and sustainability so characteristic of U.S. dairy farming and manufacturing.
In addition to hearing from the specialists, participants will have ample time to network and build relationships by attending the Summit’s welcome reception at the House of Blues, Farmers Dinner in the heart of Chicago, and a stellar gala dinner at Chicago’s world-class Field Museum.
For more information about the 2023 IDF World Dairy Summit or to register to attend, visit www.idfwds2023.com.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on April 3, 2023.
NMPF’s Bjerga on Fair Nutrition Access in Federal Programs
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga talks about the importance of equal nutrition for all — and how milk in both regular and lactose-free options can assist in that goal — is a bedrock principle in federal nutrition programs. Bjerga also updates on the latest in NMPF’s comment campaign regarding the FDA’s draft guidance for proper terminology in plant-based beverages, discussing the topics in an interview with RFD-TV.
Exports Stoke Dairy Demand as Inflation Bites U.S. Consumption
FDA Guidance an Incomplete Win for Dairy
By Alan Bjerga, Senior Vice President, Communications, National Milk Producers Federation FDA’s split-decision draft guidance on plant-based beverage labeling offered last month gave everyone something to be mad about. For dairy producers and consumers, the fact the agency would allow plant-based beverages to call themselves “milk” is unacceptable. For plant-based beverage manufacturers, guidance that they should disclose their nutritional inferiorities prominently on the packaging makes using a dairy term much less attractive. And even though the guidance is voluntary — and thus in theory could be ignored — companies that want to stay on FDA’s good side and avoid being called out on their noncompliance by dairy’s defenders have the incentive to either follow the guidance or sidestep the issue completely by avoiding dairy terms altogether. Either way, consumers win.That makes dairy the net winner in the decision, however incomplete it may be. Crucially, FDA is accepting the National Milk Producers Federation’s core argument — that ample consumer research shows that consumers are confused over the nutritional content of plant-based beverages and the need for labeling. And that provides a great opportunity for dairy and consumers to make progress in achieving the logical outcome of that acceptance — ending altogether the mislabeling of plant-based beverages that’s plagued the U.S. market for more than four decades.
It’s much easier to win a debate when the premise of the debate is set on your own terms. Decades of calling on the FDA to enforce its own standard of identity for milk mostly fell on deaf ears. Even if dairy’s argument was clearly correct, FDA could choose to do nothing about it, and doing nothing was a task in which FDA excelled.
As plant-based beverages proliferated and it became clear that stolen dairy terms encouraged consumers to assume an incorrect nutritional profile for these products, nutritional confusion among consumers has become a public health issue the agency simply can’t ignore. And to its credit, FDA’s guidance, for all its flaws, is an attempt to seriously address a problem it began to acknowledge only in the past half-decade.
But now that the agency has acknowledged the problems and offered guidance, it will be critical to keep up the pressure to follow this progress to a successful conclusion. Consumers, dairy producers, and their allies need to make sure FDA’s approach isn’t weakened, and then to make sure that now that our analysis of the problem has been accepted, the logical solution of that analysis – limiting dairy terms only to dairy products – is the eventual outcome.
On the first point, FDA has opened its guidance up for public comment. NMPF has set up its own simple guide on how to submit a comment. Through this form, members of the public can either personalize their own message to FDA or have access to resources that will help them write their own comments from scratch.
On the second point, we are advocating for congressional passage of the DAIRY PRIDE Act, which has been introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The legislation would require FDA to enforce its standard of identity for milk, solving the problem at its root.
The fight for labeling integrity has taken patience and persistence. But progress is real, and with momentum on our side, we can make a real difference in the marketplace for public health. Please consider joining us in this effort.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on March 20, 2023.
NMPF’s Bjerga on Plant-Based vs. Lab-Based Labeling Concerns
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses the differing challenges of plant-based beverages that use dairy terms vs. lab-created dairy alternatives using a replicated dairy protein, in an interview with WEKZ radio in Janesville, WI. While plant-based beverages have widely divergent nutritional profiles, lab-based dairy does incorporate actual dairy — but doesn’t duplicate the complex interactions and processes that create a true dairy product.
