ARLINGTON, VA – The board of directors of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) today voted to extend funding through 2021 for Cooperatives Working Together (CWT), the farmer-funded export assistance program that assists member cooperatives in exporting dairy products.

CWT’s three-year extension comes at a time of growing U.S. milk production, weak global dairy prices and increased worldwide competition. CWT is the only program of its kind that enables farmers to fund a private enterprise that increases the competitiveness of U.S. dairy exports. NMPF developed and manages the 16-year-old self-help program.

“CWT is a unique and highly cost-effective tool for America’s dairy farmers, and the ongoing commitment of America’s dairy cooperatives to the program sends a signal to dairy producers at home, and dairy exporters abroad, that the United States will maintain a strong competitive stance in the global dairy market,” said NMPF Chairman Randy Mooney, a dairy farmer from Rogersville, Missouri.

CWT is a voluntary membership program funded by contributions from NMPF’s member cooperatives and more than 100 individual farmers. The funds raised from the CWT membership fee of $0.04/cwt. help maintain U.S. exports in an increasingly competitive world market.

CWT’s member cooperatives submit bids requesting help with sales in specific foreign markets. After independent review and justification, bids are either accepted or CWT makes a counteroffer. Financial assistance is provided only after the sale is completed.

Through the first five months of 2018, CWT has facilitated the sale of 56 million pounds of dairy products, representing the equivalent of 648 million pounds of milk. Since the export assistance program’s inception in 2003, it has helped members sell 887 million pounds of dairy products, the equivalent of more than 11.1 billion pounds of milk.

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The Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) Export Assistance program is funded by voluntary contributions from dairy cooperatives and individual dairy farmers. The money raised by their investment is being used to strengthen and stabilize the dairy farmers’ milk prices and margins. For more information about CWT, visit www.cwt.coop.

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

ARLINGTON, VA – The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) today expressed thanks to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for his department’s decision to give dairy farmers additional time to review their 2018 coverage options in the dairy Margin Protection Program (MPP).

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said Monday it is extending the June 1 sign-up deadline to Friday, June 8.  NMPF, along with key members of the U.S. Senate, had recently asked USDA to consider giving farmers additional time to enroll in, or adjust their existing coverage in, the MPP for calendar year 2018.

“We believe an extension of the sign-up period beyond the June 1 deadline will be beneficial in recruiting as many farmers as possible into the program,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “In particular, the late spring planting in numerous dairy states, especially in the Midwest, means that many farmers have been in their fields in recent weeks and unable to sit down and make decisions about their risk management options available through USDA.”

Dairy producers must select new coverage in the MPP for 2018, even if they enrolled during the previous sign-up period last fall. Coverage choices made this spring for calendar year 2018 will be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2018. Producers can participate in either MPP or the Livestock Gross Margin program for dairy (LGM-Dairy), but not both.

NMPF also thanked members of the Senate for making a similar request to USDA to allow farmers additional time to enroll in the MPP. Sens. Tina Smith (D-MN) and Rob Portman (R-OH) spearheaded a bipartisan letter making the request on May 31, and Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) advocated strongly for an extension to build on their success earlier this year in making legislative improvements to the structure of the MPP.

Mulhern also complimented USDA for planning to issue payments starting this week to farmers already enrolled in the MPP, saying that the “timely issuance of payments to producers will send an important signal to additional producers who are considering enrolling.”

USDA’s web tool allows dairy farmers to quickly and easily combine unique operation data and other variables to calculate their coverage needs based on price projections. NMPF’s Future for Dairy website also offers informative resources and tools to help farmers determine the best insurance options for their operations.

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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 dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. The members of NMPF’s cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S. milk supply, making NMPF the voice of dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. For more on NMPF’s activities, visit our website at www.nmpf.org.

Increased production per cow and expectations for additional milk production growth is dampening the outlook for milk prices for the remainder of 2016. Spot market prices for Cheddar cheese are under pressure from rising inventories, and this will soon be reflected in the USDA/AMS dairy product price survey and in Federal Order Class III prices.Nonfat dry milk and dry whey prices remain in line with world market-driven, depressed levels, although butter prices continue to hold at around $2 a pound.These anticipated low milk prices and the recent rally in grain prices during the spring planting and growing season have combined to push projections for the dairy-income-over-feed-cost margin to its lowest levels since 2013.USDA’s NMPF decision tool for the Margin Protection Program (MPP) now indicates that the MPP margin may fall below $6.00 per hundredweight for the May-June period.

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The newspaper headlines in 2018 have painted a grim portrait of the difficult financial conditions facing many of America’s dairy farmers.  The prolonged slump in milk prices we’ve been going through has taken a painful toll on farmers, raising questions about the outlook not just for individual farms, but for the entire U.S. dairy sector.  Hopefully, the recent positive movement in prices signals a rebound – as the futures markets are currently forecasting – that will continue as we move into summer.

When we face these difficult and uncertain times, it’s important to remind both policymakers and consumers of the tremendous economic importance of the entire U.S. dairy value chain, from grass to glass. Despite the ongoing volatility in milk prices, the overall financial footprint of dairy farming, processing and retailing is significant.  And that’s why NMPF, along with the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), are joining forces this spring to launch a new information campaign to inform those outside of our industry about the ripple effect of dairy production.

The campaign’s slogan is straightforward: “Got Jobs? Dairy creates jobs, Exports create more.” The idea is to illustrate, with extensive data sources as well as human interest stories, how the process of bringing dairy foods to market creates jobs in every state – and a growing number of those are tied to marketing dairy products internationally, not just domestically.

The centerpiece of the “Got Jobs?” campaign is a website, http://gotdairyjobs.org/, that features state-by-state fact sheets on the economic impact of exports, as well as the state-level impacts of the entire dairy products industry.  The site contains detailed information from the Dairy Delivers℠ economic impact tool created by IDFA, quantifying that the U.S. dairy sector supports nearly 3 million American workers, generates more than $39 billion in direct wages and has an overall economic impact of more than $628 billion.

This effort is a unique collaboration between our three organizations, because our members all have something important to contribute to the larger narrative about the economic impacts of U.S. dairy production.  In addition to the local news stories about the current challenges confronting many dairy farmers, there’s obviously been a huge national public policy focus in the past two years on the health of the U.S. economy, and the role of farming, manufacturing and trade in that equation.  So, this is a great time for the collective dairy community to add a fresh perspective to that discussion.

This “Got Jobs?” collaboration emphasizes numbers and data, as we live in a world increasingly defined by the big data we collect and measure.  But numbers are only a part of our narrative, and it’s hard to tell interesting stories just with figures.  That’s why this campaign will also feature the faces and names of the real people involved at different points in the dairy value chain.

It’s important to note that this is not an advocacy campaign; the effort is not about taking a position on any piece of legislation.  That said, we at NMPF will continue emphasizing the importance of export-friendly policies that allow U.S. farmers and processors to reach customers in foreign markets.  This effort also will help remind influential audiences that domestic dairy production is an economic powerhouse with significant, far-reaching tentacles throughout the entire United States. Dairy producers make contributions in every single state, not just in few states or regions.  Very few other agricultural commodities can make that claim.

The fact that this campaign is being launched as the 2018 Farm Bill is being developed on Capitol Hill is coincidental, but the timing is fortuitous.  It’s important for policy makers to understand that decisions made in Washington can have real-world impacts, positive and negative, on our industry.  We need an effective safety net for farmers to help them endure the tough times they’re now experiencing.  We also need regulatory certainty for employers, and we need fair trade agreements to help us reach customers outside of our borders.

This last point bears repeating. One of the major reasons prices collapsed after 2014 – and haven’t fully recovered in the years since then – was a drop-off in international dairy demand growth.  Conversely, exports are rebounding nicely this spring, and the farm-level price outlook for the last half of this year is getting better.  Our own export sales program, Cooperatives Working Together (CWT), is moving large volumes of cheese, butter and whole milk powder into international markets.

The best thing we can do for dairy farmers as well as dairy companies is to create opportunities for growth. Some of that is to be found here at home, but an increasing focus must be on sales to foreign customers.  The entire dairy community has a great future, and we need to continue working together to move us forward – strongly and boldly – into that future.

ARLINGTON, VA – U.S. dairy producers and manufacturers offered to collaborate today with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to continue fostering dairy food safety and job growth, as the agency develops procedures for regulating imported foods, including shellfish and dairy.

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) today asked for further engagement with FDA on ways to facilitate U.S. dairy exports, while expressing concerns that the manner in which the U.S. government is handling shellfish trade would pose a deep concern if that same process were applied to the trade of dairy foods.

At issue is FDA’s determination of whether a foreign country has “equivalent” food safety parameters as the United States. Equivalence is a process by which FDA can recognize other countries’ food safety measures as meeting an equivalent level of protection as provided by U.S. food safety measures, such as those mandated by the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference or the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS).

In a letter sent today to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, NMPF and USDEC praised the commissioner’s commitment to “unlock economic opportunity…by creating new market access” and outlined the various ways in which the agency’s actions on dairy equivalence would need to differ dramatically from the process followed for establishing bilateral shellfish equivalency to safeguard U.S. consumers while addressing job-constraining foreign barriers to U.S. dairy products.

This spring, FDA published a notice in the Federal Register soliciting comments on its proposed finding that the EU’s food safety system for certain raw shellfish is equivalent to that in the United States. The notice represented the first time the agency has issued an equivalence determination. NMPF and USDEC filed detailed comments analyzing the notice’s potential implications for America’s dairy industry as FDA continues its ongoing Grade “A” dairy equivalence assessments of New Zealand, the European Union and Canada.

“While we recognize that the U.S. government has international obligations to be responsive to trading partners’ equivalency requests while still upholding high U.S. food safety standards, our trading partners likewise have their own obligations to not impose unduly burdensome or trade-distorting measures on U.S. exports,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern.

“As part of the administration’s efforts to expand the U.S. economy and grow American jobs, FDA has a responsibility to safeguard our consumers while also working in tandem with our trade agencies to tear down foreign barriers to U.S. products,” Mulhern continued. “FDA’s scarce resources are best spent pursuing these goals in concert with one another by working with their inter-agency partners to make the best use of the agency’s skilled staff and taxpayer funds. Trade needs to be a two-way street; some of our trading partners understand that better than others.”

USDEC’s Chief Operating Officer, Matt McKnight, noted another area of the Notice that would be problematic were it applied to dairy trade: “American dairy producers in every state are governed by a uniform dairy food safety program which is overseen by FDA and provides consistently high food safety results for U.S. products exported all around the world, regardless of where in this country they were made.”

McKnight continued: “A dairy export deal that allowed only two states to access a foreign market, as is the case under this shellfish proposal, would create unacceptable commercial inequities in our industry. Our exporters face a lot of roadblocks around the world, particularly in the EU market. We look forward to working with FDA to fully address those barriers and ensure that all U.S. dairy products from all U.S. states have an equal opportunity to benefit from the agency’s work to tackle countries’ unjustified or overly burdensome requirements on American-made products.”

In the letter, NMPF and USDEC reiterated that their joint comments did not scrutinize the technical merits of FDA’s decision on the safety of EU shellfish, but rather focused on the process employed with the goal of ensuring it is not replicated with respect to dairy trade. The two organizations seek to work in partnership with FDA to pursue a dairy model that will successfully uphold U.S. food safety standards while facilitating the resolution of barriers to U.S. exports that limit job growth in the dairy sector.

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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 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. For more on NMPF’s activities, visit www.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.

(Washington, D.C. – May 21, 2018) Most Americans know milk and other dairy products are an essential part of a healthy diet. But less well-known is dairy’s contribution to the health of the U.S. economy and the economies of every state across the country. A new storytelling campaign launched today by the U.S. dairy industry aims to shine a brighter, data-driven spotlight on the positive effects of dairy’s economic engine.

The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) are collaborating to create the new “Got Jobs? Dairy Creates Jobs, Exports Create More” campaign. Over the next year, they will share in-depth data and compelling narratives featuring hardworking dairy farmers, innovative dairy company employees, resourceful retailers and many others throughout the food supply chain at GotDairyJobs.org.

Dairy Delivers℠

The U.S. dairy products industry supports nearly 3 million workers, generates more than $39 billion in direct wages and has an overall economic impact of more than $628 billion, according to IDFA’s economic impact tool, Dairy Delivers^SM. The tool also examines dairy’s economic ripple effect on other sectors of the national economy, showing dairy is responsible for $24.9 billion in state and local business tax revenues and another $39.5 billion in federal business tax revenues.

“With the Trump administration’s current focus on global trade, it’s important for consumers and policymakers to understand how dairy drives the American economy,” said

Michael Dykes, D.V.M., president and CEO of IDFA. “The United States needs sound trade policy that will place the U.S. dairy industry on a level playing field with global competitors. Backed by fair and proactive trade policies, the U.S. dairy industry will continue to keep and create jobs in states across the country.”

Easy-to-access Information

The new campaign provides a clearinghouse of information at GotDairyJobs.org. The site will offer monthly features, videos and plenty of hard facts that demonstrate dairy’s continued impact on jobs, tax revenue and communities around the country. Using #GotDairyJobs, the dairy industry will amplify the campaign and create the dairy jobs conversation on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

“Dairy has a positive story to tell, affecting a wide swath of America, creating jobs and tax revenue in rural, suburban and urban communities,” said Tom Vilsack, president and CEO of USDEC, who saw dairy’s impact first-hand as U.S. Agriculture Secretary. “I’m delighted we now have a go-to place where people can find state-by-state data and compelling human stories that reinforce the same message: `Dairy creates jobs and exports create more.’”

Farm to Table

“As milk continues its journey from farm to table, it becomes a job-creation machine, employing farm workers, truck drivers, construction workers, factory workers, retailers and even cargo ship captains navigating the ocean to ports in fast-growing countries demanding more dairy than their own countries can produce,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “The United States is uniquely positioned to meet this growing global need, which allows U.S. dairy to provide opportunities for job creation and growth in the United States.”

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About IDFA
The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), Washington, D.C., represents the nation’s dairy manufacturing and marketing industry, which supports nearly 3 million jobs, generates more than $39 billion in direct wages and has an overall economic impact of more than $628 billion. IDFA is the umbrella organization for the Milk Industry Foundation (MIF), the National Cheese Institute (NCI) and the International Ice Cream Association (IICA). IDFA’s members range from large multinational organizations to single-plant companies. Together they represent more than 85 percent of the milk, cultured products, cheese, ice cream and frozen desserts produced and marketed in the United States and sold throughout the world. The diverse membership includes numerous food retailers, suppliers and companies that offer infant formula and a wide variety of milk-derived ingredients. Visit IDFA at www.idfa.org.

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

About USDEC
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.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Overwhelming opposition from a strong coalition of dairy farmers, processors, consumer groups, food safety advocates, federal and state public health regulators, the medical community, and other key stakeholders led to the defeat today of an amendment to the 2018 House Farm Bill that would have allowed the interstate sale of unpasteurized milk.

Amendment 30, offered by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), would have removed existing regulations that prohibit the interstate sale of raw milk for direct human consumption – a development that the coalition of opponents said would have threatened the health of millions of Americans. The Massie amendment failed Friday in the House by a vote of 331 against to 79 in favor.

In a May 14 letter to House leaders Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) insisted that Massie’s proposed amendment to the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (H.R. 2) represented “an unnecessary risk to consumer safety and public health.”

“This amendment defies decades of proven food safety by removing requirements for pasteurization, which has been cited by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as one of the great achievements in public health in the 20th century,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF.

In addition to opposition from NMPF and IDFA, strong letters of opposition to the amendment were also sent to House leadership by the Safe Food Coalition – a consumer group consortium consisting of the Center for Foodborne Illness, Research & Prevention; the Center for Science in the Public Interest; the Consumer Federation of America; the National Consumers League; STOP Foodborne Illness; and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments, a national food safety regulatory program that includes state milk regulatory agencies, dairy companies and FDA, also came out against the Massie measure, as did a coalition of 53 dairy cooperatives, state dairy associations and the American Association of Bovine Practitioners.

According to the dairy coalition letter, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that unpasteurized milk is 840 times more likely to cause foodborne illness than pasteurized milk, and nearly 75 percent of raw milk‐associated outbreaks have occurred in states where the sale of raw milk was legal. Thus, the dairy groups argued, eliminating any regulations that stem the interstate sale of raw milk in the United States “would increase the risk to public health, exposing consumers nationwide to the inevitable consequence of falling victim to a foodborne illness.”

“Nationally, our dairy industry benefits from a very high degree of consumer confidence – confidence built in large part by the excellent food safety record of milk and dairy products,” said Michael Dykes, D.V.M., president and CEO of IDFA. “Legalizing and regulating the sale of raw milk sends a signal to consumers that drinking unpasteurized milk is safe when, in fact, the opposite is true.”

Current statistics estimate only 1‐2 percent of reported foodborne outbreaks are attributed to dairy products. However, of those, more than 70 percent have been attributed to raw milk and inappropriately aged raw milk cheeses.

While this is the first time that Congress has debated changing federal laws to expand access to raw milk, NMPF and IDFA have worked for years to battle similar bills at the state level, including recent efforts in Tennessee, Virginia and Louisiana. NMPF and IDFA have long advocated against the consumption of raw milk and raw milk products because of the high risk of illness, as well as the potential for misinformation that could inappropriately tie raw milk health concerns to the safety of pasteurized dairy products.

“We greatly appreciate those who joined the current effort – from dairy producers, to dairy processors, state dairy regulators, consumer and food safety groups, state and local dairy organizations, the medical community, and veterinarians – and took a stand to oppose this irresponsible amendment that would have significantly compromised food safety,” said Mulhern.

Dykes added, “We appreciate the strong signal sent from the House of Representatives to raw milk advocates who could try to jeopardize public health in the future. We urge all legislators – at both the federal and state levels – who will face similar misguided efforts to follow the exemplary leadership demonstrated today by our nation’s representatives.”

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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 dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. The members of NMPF’s cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S. milk supply, making NMPF the voice of dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. For more on NMPF’s activities, visit our website at www.nmpf.org.

The International Dairy Foods Association, Washington, D.C., represents the nation’s dairy manufacturing and marketing industry, which supports nearly 3 million jobs, generates more than $39 billion in direct wages and has an overall economic impact of more than $200 billion. IDFA is the umbrella organization for the Milk Industry Foundation (MIF), the National Cheese Institute (NCI) and the International Ice Cream Association (IICA). IDFA’s members range from large multinational organizations to single-plant companies. Together they represent more than 85 percent of the milk, cultured products, cheese, ice cream and frozen desserts produced and marketed in the United States and sold throughout the world. The diverse membership includes numerous food retailers, suppliers and companies that offer infant formula and a wide variety of milk-derived ingredients. Visit IDFA at www.idfa.org.

ARLINGTON, VA – Swedish food company Oatly, whose powdered, grass-based beverage is sold both in Europe and across the United States, should respect U.S. food labeling standards that restrict the use of the term “milk” to real dairy products, according to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF).

NMPF said today that Oatly is just the latest fake “milk” that is exploiting a lax regulatory environment in the United States to mislabel its imitation dairy product. NMPF criticized Oatly for complaining to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month that it would be placed at a disadvantage if it could not call its product “oat milk,” even though it is not called “oat milk” anywhere except in the United States – not even in its native Sweden.

In the U.S. market, Oatly labels its product as “oat milk.” But in its home market of Sweden, where the product originated more than 25 years ago, Oatly is labeled as “havre dryck,” or “oat drink” in Swedish.  European Union (EU) regulations – similar to existing U.S. government standards – define milk as an animal product and do not allow plant-based milk copycats to use dairy terms.

“It takes a lot of gall to complain to FDA that your company would be harmed by calling its product exactly what its already been labeled for years in its home market,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “It’s been sold as an oat drink – which is exactly what it is – since it was first introduced in Sweden. Given that the EU and United States have similar food labeling regulations governing dairy terms, Oatly should label their product as an oat drink here, just as they do in Sweden.”

Oatly’s complaint was contained in an April 11 letter sent to FDA regarding a petition by the Good Food Institute (GFI), a group promoting vegan foods. Oatly wrote in support of GFI’s petition, which called for FDA to modify existing food standards to sanction the current marketplace abuse of marketers using dairy terms on products made from plants, not milk.

In a letter to FDA, Oatly U.S. General Manager Mike Messersmith said “budding and innovative companies like Oatly would be placed at a serious disadvantage if we were no longer allowed to use terms that instantly and accurately convey what’s inside the carton. ‘Oat liquid,’ ‘oat beverage,’ or ‘oat juice’ fail to explain what our products actually are and would almost certainly result in decreased sales.”

Mulhern said that using any of those three terms much more accurately conveys what’s inside the carton than falsely labeling it “oat milk.”

“They are not allowed to call it ‘oat milk’ in Sweden and it’s been sold there for years,” he said. “The reality is that Oatly wants to use the word ‘milk’ because the word brings a healthy halo of consistent, reliable nutrition and other benefits. They are clearly riding on milk’s nutritional coattails to boost their own profits. It’s unfair to America’s dairy farmers, who follow strict regulations to ensure their real dairy products are safe and nutritious.  And it’s unfair to consumers because this product does not match milk’s superior nutritional package,” Mulhern said.

In promoting its cereal-derived beverage as oat “milk,” Oatly is blatantly skirting U.S. food labeling regulations, which dictate that any product using dairy terms including “milk,” “cheese” or “yogurt” must have originated from an animal. NMPF has long insisted that FDA take enforcement action against similarly misbranded products.

To highlight Oatly’s doublespeak to the FDA, NMPF has created a graphic that illustrates the difference between Oatly’s U.S. and Swedish packaging. This image will join others in NMPF’s “Dairy Imitators: Exposed” campaign, which calls out non-dairy imitation brands for ignoring federal standards and failing to live up to real milk’s complete nutrient package.

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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 dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. The members of NMPF’s cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S. milk supply, making NMPF the voice of dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. For more on NMPF’s activities, visit our website at www.nmpf.org.

After requests from farmers, program participants and dairy customers across the country, the National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program is expanding its suite of educational resources addressing on-farm dairy safety.

The FARM Program materials will help farmers who want basic human resources tools and safety practices for their employees, enabling farm owners to increase worker engagement, reduce employee turnover and manage liabilities from the safety risks of dairy farming. The materials will also help answer questions from major dairy customers asking about farm employee management.

Last year, the FARM Program pulled together the FARM Dairy Safety task force – comprising dairymen, cooperative management and safety experts from across the country – to begin addressing the questions being asked of the industry. The task force then decided to form two working groups focused on worker safety and human resources.

The task force has directed the FARM Program to begin creating educational materials to distribute to dairy farmers in 2018, with input from the working groups. The following materials will be available to farmers later this year:

Human Resources

• 50 State by State Factsheets for all relevant HR laws applicable to dairy farmers
• Producer Self-Assessment Checklist
• FARM Human Resources Manual
• Housing Provider Best Practices
• Employee Handbook Template
• Online HR Management Training Module

Worker Safety

• Producer Self-Assessment Checklist
• FARM Worker Safety Manual
• Safety Plan Template
• Worker Safety Videos

As the FARM Program receives input from different sources, it is also looking for examples of positive producer safety efforts happening on FARM dairy operations. Contact Ryan Bennett with any questions, input or examples of dairy farms using effective worker safety or HR practices.