Cooperatives Working Together member cooperatives last month received 31 contracts to sell 3.946 million pounds of cheese, 2.535 million pounds of butter and 5.589 million pounds of whole milk powder. The products will go to customers in Asia, Central America, the Middle East, North Africa, Oceania and South America. The product will be shipped from March through September 2016.

For the first three months of 2016, CWT assisted members in capturing sales contracts totaling 12.361 million pounds of American-type cheese, 7.716 million pounds of butter (82% milkfat) and 14.676 million pounds of whole milk powder going to customers in 14 countries on five continents. The sales are the equivalent of 394.845 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis.

Assisting CWT member cooperatives gain and maintain world market share through the Export Assistance program in the long-term expands the demand for U.S. dairy products and the U.S. farm milk that produces them. This, in turn, positively impacts all U.S. dairy farmers by strengthening and maintaining the value of dairy products that directly impact their milk price.

The amounts of dairy products and related milk volumes reflect current contracts for delivery, not completed export volumes. CWT will pay export assistance to the bidders only when export and delivery of the product is verified by the submission of the required documentation.

All cooperatives and dairy farmers are encouraged to add their support to this important program. Membership forms are available on the CWT website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NMPF’s forecast for 2016 MPP margins, based on late-March milk and feed futures prices, indicates that nearby margins may dip below the $8 threshold before strengthening in the latter half of 2016. The USDA reported last week that the Jan.-Feb. 2016 margin was $8.01, a penny above the MPP payment threshold. As evidenced by the wide confidence interval, a high degree of uncertainty remains in milk and new crop feed prices.

In March, the USDA’s National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) released Dairy Cattle Management Practices in the United States, 2014, the first report from its Dairy 2014 study. Dairy 2014 is NAHMS sixth study of the U.S. dairy industry. The study was conducted in 17 of the nation’s major dairy states, covering 76.7 percent of U.S. dairy operations and 80.3 percent of U.S. dairy cows. USDA will release additional reports in the next year.

A few highlights of the report include:

• Rolling herd average (RHA) milk production was 19,932 lb./cow. RHA milk production for grazing and organic operations was similar (14,513 and 14,758 lb./cow, respectively).
• Overall, 47.5 percent of operations had accessed the Internet for dairy information during 2013. Internet use generally increased as herd size increased, with 31.6 percent of very small operations (fewer than 30 cows) accessing the Internet for dairy information compared with 89.7 percent of large operations (500 or more cows).
• The percentage of operations that administered vaccines to cows increased as herd size increased. Overall, 73.8 percent of operations administered any vaccine to cows. More than half of operations administered vaccines against BVD (68.0 percent), infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (60.2 percent), parainfluenza type 3 (55.8 percent), bovine respiratory syncytial virus (54.8 percent), or leptospirosis (51.5 percent).

In reaction to public health concerns about the effectiveness of antibiotics, the Obama Administration announced the establishment in March 2015 of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. The Advisory Council was formed to provide advice, information, and recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services about programs intended to support Administration efforts to reduce the spread of antibiotic- resistance bacteria.  NMPF has monitored this initiative and participated in several meetings to ensure that dairy industry efforts to use antibiotics judiciously are incorporated into the process of assessing best practices in the future.

The Advisory Council met on March 30-31, 2016, to finalize its first report “Report1: Initial Assessment of the National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic –Resistant Bacteria.”  The report contains a wide array of goals and recommendations to combat antimicrobial resistance in the United States with international collaborations through a One Health approach. One Health is a multiple disciplinary approach of human and veterinary medicine to address such issues as antimicrobial resistance.

The report contains wide-ranging goals and recommendations for antimicrobial stewardship in both humans and animals. For the U.S. dairy industry, these goals and recommendations fall in four focus areas: (1) on-farm antibiotic use data collection; (2) increasing antimicrobial stewardship in food and companion animals (including additional veterinary oversight); (3) additional research in the flow of antimicrobial resistance through the environment (from use in animals to people and use in people to animals); and (4) development of new disease detection, prevention, control and treatment options (vaccines, new antibiotics, alternative therapeutics, etc.).

For more than 25 years, the U.S. dairy industry has focused educational efforts on the judicious use of antimicrobial drugs through the annual publication of a Best Practices Manual. The 2016 edition of the National Dairy FARM Program: Farmers Assuring Responsible Management™  Milk and Dairy Beef Drug Residue Prevention Manual developed by NMPF is the primary educational tool for dairy farm managers throughout the country on the judicious and responsible use of antibiotics serving as the industry’s antimicrobial stewardship guide.

A bill backed by NMPF that would have created a national, voluntary labeling standard for foods made with genetically modified ingredients (GMOs) failed on the Senate floor March 16, when the measure did not win the 60 votes needed to move it forward.

The bill – authored by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) – would have pre-empted Vermont from implementing its own mandatory labeling law, set to go into effect July 1. NMPF is concerned that other states will follow suit, creating a patchwork of varying requirements that will increase costs across the supply chain.

“Passage of a coherent food label disclosure law by Congress is the only logical approach in order to avoid the chaotic mess that would arise from leaving this issue up to the whims of 50 different states,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF.

“The vote is a disappointment, but not a defeat for those of us seeking a strong, clear, national and rational standard for food labeling,” he said. “We still believe a bi-partisan federal policy is within reach.”

Roberts introduced the bill on Feb. 19. It was approved by the agriculture committee on March 1. NMPF is supporting efforts now underway to recraft a measure that will win more bipartisan support.

Since the bill failed, several major food brands, such as General Mills and Kellogg, have announced they will begin complying with Vermont’s law by labeling their products.

NMPF has been heavily involved in the biotechnology debate as members of the Coalition for Safe and Affordable Food (CFSAF). In support of Roberts’ bill, NMPF and CFSAF joined roughly 650 food organizations that signed a letter urging Congress to act.

GMOs have been proven safe by nearly 2,000 studies from the leading scientific bodies in the world, including the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association. Currently, up to 80 percent of the food available in the United States contains genetically modified ingredients.

The National Milk Producers Federation Board of Directors recently approved revisions to the dairy industry’s animal care program, Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM).  The changes, approved on March 8, were recommended by both the FARM Technical Writing Group and NMPF’s producer-led Animal Health and Wellbeing Committee.

The NMPF Board vote concludes the nearly 11-month revision process that began in May 2015, when the Technical Writing Group, comprising farmers, veterinarians, co-op staff and animal care experts, convened to discuss the latest research in animal health and wellbeing, as well as review data from the last three years of FARM Program evaluations. This comprehensive revision process occurs every three years and includes input not only from the Technical Writing Group and Animal Health and Wellbeing Committee, but also a public comment period. 

Though the revised program guidelines won’t begin to be evaluated on until January 1, 2017, FARM Program staff will work to provide farmers with all the resources, tools and training opportunities that may be needed to adhere to the new program standards.  Many resources, including a summary of changes, sample forms and protocols, and employee training tools, are already available on the FARM Program website: www.nationaldairyfarm.com. Additionally, FARM Program staff conducted four webinars in March to help walk through the key changes and resources that will be made available.

Specifically, the updated FARM Program will include key criteria that receive additional focus and attention. Such criteria include having a Veterinarian-Client Patient Relationship, conducting employee training and maintaining records of those trainings, developing protocols on key issues such as euthanasia and non-ambulatory cattle movement, as well as ending tail docking. While these evaluations points have always been part of the FARM Program, they will receive greater focus in Version 3.0.

These changes will help ensure that the dairy industry addresses the concerns of customers and consumers who are increasingly asking more questions about the conditions under which farm animals are raised. The FARM Program provides context for the great story farmers have to tell about animal care and also enables marketing organizations to meet customers’ expectations in this area.

The National Milk Producers Federation voted at its March board meeting to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, and urged Congress to pass it this year – as long as certain implementation and enforcement concerns are addressed. The TPP agreement is a historic trade pact between 12 countries bordering the Pacific Ocean.

Board members also discussed the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), another major trade pact being negotiated with Europe. NMPF expressed its opposition to further advancement of the TTIP in light of Europe’s continuing refusal to remove barriers to U.S. dairy exports.

“Taken in its entirety, the TPP agreement is positive for the U.S. dairy industry,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF.  “Although it achieves less than we wanted in terms of throwing open new markets in Japan and Canada, I am pleased that we did not concede to a surge in new imports.”

With its endorsement, NMPF outlined one caution: U.S. government agencies must ensure the diligent enforcement of the agreement’s provisions with America’s trading partners. The NMPF resolution also urged the U.S. to establish proper enforcement measures regarding access granted to the domestic market, and monitor compliance with those measures after the TPP is implemented.

The board also noted that given the lack of significant export inroads in the agreement, the TPP market access package should not be used as a template for future U.S. trade agreements

NMPF’s position reflects a detailed assessment of the agreement, conducted by the staffs of both NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). The board weighed several factors in making its decision to support the TPP agreement:

• The net effect on the U.S. dairy industry of all TPP market access concessions is expected to be neutral to slightly positive, with the most notable U.S. export gains coming in Canada and Japan, along with somewhat smaller increases in new imports.
• There is the potential for the agreement to expand over time to include additional participants in Asia, particularly nations that currently – or will soon – have trade agreements with major dairy competitors. It is imperative that the U.S. remain a key player in the region as its works to expand future U.S. exports.
• In the areas of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) provisions, the TPP features groundbreaking new commitments that should limit the possibility of participating countries eroding existing and future market access for U.S. dairy exporters through unjustified regulatory determinations.
• The TPP contains new Geographical Indications (GI) provisions establishing a more equitable international model on registering GIs for food. The text does not directly block the EU from inappropriately restricting the use of common food names important to global trade, but it does significantly strengthen the ability for the U.S. to combat barriers when they arise, thereby helping preserve market access opportunities for U.S. companies.

Regarding the TTIP negotiations, Mulhern added: “The negotiations have not demonstrated concrete progress toward addressing food safety challenges and other non-tariff trade barriers.”

NMPF is strongly combatting the EU’s efforts to restrict common food names for its members. The failure to resolve these issues in the TTIP “would exacerbate the existing U.S. dairy trade deficit with the EU of over $1 billion,” he said.

There’s been no shortage of heated rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail in recent months about the impact of trade policy on America’s economy. Much of that language has been derogatory as the leading contenders in both the Democratic and Republican primaries express their opposition to the new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that was negotiated last year, and blame trade agreements in recent decades for costing America jobs.

Setting aside politics for the moment, the fact is that trade agreements, as with other forms of diplomacy, are a two-way street, involving significant compromises in search of a win-win outcome. They never produce black-or-white outcomes. The benefits, as well as the losses, can sometimes be hard to quantify.

But given the potential consequences of the TPP for our domestic dairy economy, National Milk, working with the U.S. Dairy Export Council, vigorously engaged in the years-long negotiations to protect and promote the interests of the U.S. dairy industry. We fought to the last minute of the last day of the trade talks in advocacy of a positive outcome for our members.

Once the final details were announced last fall, we spent the following several months weighing the overall potential impact of the TPP for our industry. Our verdict is that America’s dairy farmers and marketers will be better off with this agreement than without it.

At the same time, however, the still-pending trade agreement with the European Union is another story altogether, and it’s clear that, in the case of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), having no deal is better than what has been achieved to date.  More on that later.

If adopted, the TPP would be one of the largest trade agreements in decades, as it involves the United States and 11 other countries bordering the Pacific. When the TPP talks were initiated more than eight years ago with a smaller set of countries, our primary concern was the insistence by New Zealand – a prime mover behind the TPP – on unfettered access to our market, while the United States lacked a commensurate opportunity to increase its own dairy exports through the agreement. Fortunately, our prospects brightened when Japan and Canada subsequently joined the negotiations. While we sought significant new access into those markets, at the end of the day our negotiators were only able to achieve some modest new benefits for the United States. 

Taken together, the overall market opportunities in the TPP are neutral to positive for our industry. We avoided an unbalanced outcome that could have left America’s dairy farmers with far more imports and no new exports. There is also the likelihood of other Asian nations signing onto this agreement in the future and thereby continuing to expand the pie.

Just as important, the TPP contains new provisions to avoid future barriers that could hinder our exports. The agreement’s language on food safety issues, as well as common food names, should greatly reduce the opportunity for our TPP partners to create sudden and unwarranted barriers to trade. These features are among the primary benefits of an FTA, if they are implemented properly. 

In expressing support for the TPP, NMPF has emphasized that the fine print really matters. We are endorsing the outlines of the agreement, but will continue to insist that the terms agreed to need to be followed by the other countries in this agreement. We’ve seen some recent disturbing examples – such as Canada threatening to arbitrarily change its cheese standards to hamper U.S. milk protein exports – where our partners are trying to backslide on compliance with previous commitments. The U.S. needs to be continually vigilant so that doesn’t happen with the TPP signatories down the road.

Regrettably, the status of the still-evolving major European free trade agreement isn’t nearly as encouraging. The most important element of the transatlantic trade discussions – tackling the EU’s various nontariff constraints on U.S. dairy exports, including the inappropriate use of geographical indications – remains unresolved.  And the concern now is that with nine months left in the Obama Administration, there could be an effort to sweep these serious U.S. dairy sector concerns under the rug so that that the TTIP deal can be finished.  We have sent the unequivocal signal that such an outcome is a deal-breaker for our farmer members.

What’s lost in this election-year, silly season is that regardless of whether one country agrees to a free trade agreement with others, the overall forces of globalization will continue, as they have for decades. The world has gotten smaller.

Think of it as a highway where agreements like the TPP help to police the rules of the road. They enable us to avoid costly pile-ups by enforcing the rules. This is all the more important because when we produce 30 billion pounds more milk than we have a market for in this country, we are well past the point where we can ignore the seven billion people that live beyond our borders.

 

From Jim Mulhern, President and Chief Executive Officer, NMPF:

ARLINGTON, VA – “Today’s vote is a disappointment, but not a defeat for those of us seeking a strong, clear, national and rational standard for food labeling.

“Despite today’s vote, we believe a bi-partisan federal policy is within reach, based on discussions with Senate offices in the last few days. We are committed to working to bridge differences and get a compromise agreement through the Senate.

“Passage of a coherent food label disclosure law by Congress is the only logical approach in order to avoid the chaotic mess that would arise from leaving this issue up to the whims of 50 different states.”

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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.