WASHINGTON, DC – Even after free trade agreements are negotiated by the U.S. government, the value of the pacts depends greatly on the ability of the United States to make other countries live up to their commitments when the agreements are enforced, according to the National Milk Producers Federation, whose president testified today at a Senate hearing on the lessons from how past trade agreements have been implemented.

Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF, told members of the Senate Finance committee Thursday that trade has become critically important to America’s dairy sector, thanks to the Uruguay Round and numerous new U.S. free trade agreements since 1994.  Even as dairy exports have grown, assisted in sizable part by the arduous, careful negotiations of the treaties, in some cases we have “to work almost as hard to ensure that the market access terms of the agreements are not subsequently undermined,” Mulhern said.

Mulhern cited as an example of this dynamic the ongoing challenge to maintain access to the Canadian dairy market through the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Uruguay Round. Canada continues to erect impediments to block dairy imports from the U.S., he said. One of its latest targets “is U.S. exports of ultra-filtered milk. Canada has been considering expanding its restrictions on the use of certain dairy inputs in cheese-making to hinder imports. If Canada is allowed to continue with this pattern of eroding existing U.S. dairy access, it is difficult to see how new trade commitments with them will benefit our dairy industry,” Mulhern said.

Similar post-FTA issues arose with South Korea, but prompt and proactive U.S. government actions were successful in “ensuring that Korean officials worked with our government to resolve most of them,” he said.

Mulhern said that the best window of opportunity for influencing how countries will implement their FTA obligations “is during the period prior to congressional approval of an agreement.  Action during this window not only ensures that Congress has a clear understanding of how the agreement is intended to work in practice, but it utilizes the strongest point of leverage the U.S. possesses: whether or not we will decide to put in place a strengthening of our trade ties with the FTA partner.”

“This becomes especially important now that the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations have concluded, and consideration in Congress will at some point begin. It is also important given that our attention is now turning to intensifying the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations with the European Union.” He noted that a concrete approach to addressing the serious regulatory and technical barriers to trade with Europe has yet to develop in the TTIP talks.

“At this stage, given our past experiences, we do not believe TTIP is currently on the right track” for a successful and truly market-opening conclusion, Mulhern said. In addition to the dairy regulatory challenges, another very troubling issue in those negotiations is the EU’s geographical indications strategy, where the EU is seeking to restrict the use of common food names just for European food producers, both in the U.S. and in other nations to which the EU exports food.

“It is essential that we protect our trade rights from the onslaught of EU efforts to bully our trading partners into blocking imports of products from countries that allow the use of product names the EU wishes to reserve for itself through overly broad GI restrictions. This market eroding pattern began in Korea and soon spread to our Latin American FTA partners before impacting others around the world as well,” he said.

The geographical indications text in the pending TransPacific Partnership “was conceived as a direct response to trade restrictions that were threatening to crop up in our FTA markets,” Mulhern said.  “But our experience tells us that we will have to work hard not only to enforce the letter of that agreement, but also to ensure that its intention to help promote robust competition is not undermined as a result of ongoing pressure from the EU.  With the right focus and strategic efforts, positive results in this area are achievable, as this week’s good news about a breakthrough on GI issues with Honduras helps to demonstrate.”

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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.

ARLINGTON, VA — The dairy industry today thanked the U.S. government for its extensive work aimed at securing clarifications regarding the right to use several generic cheese names in exports to Honduras while also establishing a better model for how Central American countries can more reliably provide such information in the future.

Honduras is an important trading partner in a growing region for U.S. dairy exports. It is a member of the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). U.S. dairy exports to CAFTA partners totaled $109 million last year, with Honduras ranking second in the FTA region.

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) said they appreciated the Administration’s diligent work with Honduras, which this week clarified the use of threatened cheese names including parmesan, provolone and brie. Although the results did not include assurance on the continued use of certain other common names currently protected in Honduras, it does provide important assurances on many common name products.

The threat stemmed from a free trade agreement between Honduras and the European Union, in which the EU secured provisions that threatened to restrict the use of numerous commonly used food names as a way to gain a trade advantage. After numerous discussions between the United States and Honduras, the country agreed, among other things, to clearly spell out on its official website the scope of protection of the names and to create a searchable database to identify geographical indications, the official designations that protect the unique nature of specialized foods. The database will also identify which elements of those terms are deemed to be generic. In addition, Honduras committed to other steps such as providing similar clarifications for future GI applications.

“The dairy industry has worked closely with the Administration for several years to mitigate potential damage to our CAFTA market access opportunities arising from the Central America – EU FTA,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “USTR’s work with Honduras was particularly important, since a previous lack of easily accessible information in Honduras hurt our own efforts to determine our ability to keep using common cheese names in exports to that country.”

Tom Suber, president of USDEC, also praised this latest accomplishment, while stressing that this was one victory in a continuing battle with Europe over geographical indications.

“Essentially, through geographical indications provisions in its FTAs, Europe wants to monopolize the use of food names that have long been in the public domain,” Suber said. “We encourage USTR keep working in additional markets – both in Central America and around the globe – to preserve our ability to use these common cheese names, particularly in countries with which we have our own free trade agreements.”

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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 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 30 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, visit www.nmpf.org.

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 urged the full Senate to act quickly on legislation that would establish national regulations to bring consistency and transparency to the labeling of ingredients and processes used in the food supply.

The Senate Agriculture Committee today approved, by a 14-6 vote, a bill introduced last week by its Chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), that would create a common-sense, national food labeling standard offering consumers information about products that contain ingredients such as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).   The legislation would preempt state laws that create labeling mandates for foods with ingredients that have been genetically modified.

Food labeling “is an area where we need a clear federal standard, not a piecemeal approach across the 50 states,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “We’ve learned from experience in the dairy sector that we need a strong federal policy governing labeling claims. Otherwise, we’ll end up with an unworkable series of competing and confusing state policies.”

NMPF urged the Senate to expedite passage of Roberts’s measure, in order to prevent confusing marketing environment in the food industry this summer, when Vermont’s new law, requiring labeling of foods containing GMOs, goes into effect on July 1^st.  The Senate’s approach “will provide information that shoppers want, without requiring that stigmatizing label claims be mandated at the state or federal level,” Mulhern said. “Any requirement, even at the state level, to use labels to call out GMO ingredients is a de facto scarlet letter being forced on many foods, without warrant.  Mandatory GMO labels play into the fear-based marketing we see too frequently in the food industry.”

NMPF and its 31 cooperative members co-signed a letter last Tuesday with more than 600 other farm and food groups urging action on Sen. Roberts’ bill by the Senate.  The House of Representatives already passed a version of a national food labeling bill last July.

Multiple studies have shown that the associated costs with Vermont’s GMO-labeling law, and a subsequent patchwork of similar state laws, will cost American families hundreds of dollars more in groceries each year – with low-income Americans being hit the hardest.

The Roberts bill “will gives consumers the information they want in a consistent and factual way,” said Mulhern. “It also reaffirms the authority of federal regulators over food safety and labeling, and prevents the creeping development of dozens of different state food labeling laws.”

Genetically modified food ingredients have been proven safe by nearly 2,000 studies from the leading scientific bodies worldwide. Included are the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association. Up to 80 percent of the food available in the United States contains genetically modified ingredients.

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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.

U.S. milk production continues to grow at an annual rate of less than 1 percent. Despite this, milk prices are weakening going into the first half of 2016. Weakness in world markets is transmitting low prices into the domestic nonfat dry milk and dry whey markets, while exports of butter and cheese remain well below levels of last year. The bimonthly MPP margin for November-December was $9.56, but most forecasts project that it will fall to between $7 and $8 during the next few months.

Find the Dairy Market Report on our website.

On September 29, 2015 USDA received a hearing request from the Organic Trade Association seeking a hearing to amend all Federal Milk Marketing Orders (FMMO) to include alternative producer-settlement fund payments for USDA certified organic milk. OTA’s proposal, if adopted, would certainly eliminate producer settlement fund payment obligations paid by organic handlers into the FMMO revenue sharing pools. As a result, the regulated minimum milk value provided by FMMOs would be reduced by tens of millions of dollars each year. In addition, this proposal would set a bad precedent as it would erode participation and undermine the stability of the time honored FMMO system.

NMPF filed two letters to USDA in oppostion to this hearing request. These letters are linked below:

• NMPF Letter to USDA, October 22, 2015
• NMPF Letter to USDA, December 17, 2015

(Washington, D.C. – February 16, 2016) – In order to strengthen the ongoing partnership between the dairy and beef segments of the cattle industry on animal care issues, the National Milk Producers Federation and the beef checkoff-funded Beef Quality Assurance program today announced they will jointly be offering more training opportunities for farmers and ranchers in 2016.

NMPF has been working for the past year on identifying areas where its Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) program can further coordinate with the Dairy Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) Program, managed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association on behalf of the Beef Checkoff. Both programs focus on educating cattle producers about the best practices in animal care, to assure consumers that their meat and milk comes from animals that receive optimal care throughout the animals’ lives.

At the Cattle Industry Convention last month, the BQA Advisory Board approved an addition to its program whereby any dairy producer evaluated using the FARM program’s upcoming version 3.0, due out in January 2017, will also receive their BQA certification. BQA will also be working with the FARM program in the coming years to create training opportunities for dairy producers to preserve the beef quality of their cows. These training sessions will focus on stockmanship, residue prevention, and transportation. Many of these training opportunities will be available at the state level, implemented by the BQA state coordinators.

“This partnership will maximize the value of the beef checkoff’s investment in animal care, which is an issue of greater importance today because of consumers’ interest in the source of their beef, and the treatment of cows,” said Dan Kniffen, Ph.D., vice chair of the BQA Advisory Board.

Emily Meredith, NMPF’s Vice President of Animal Care, and director of the FARM program, said that “education is the key to preventing health and wellness problems for cattle further down the road. This collaboration with BQA will extend the reach of the FARM program’s educational materials, and harness the expertise that BQA state network of educators can provide to dairy farmers.”

In addition to regional training sessions and additional educational materials, the FARM program and BQA will jointly produce online stockmanship training resources that will be made available to dairy farmers in 2016.

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About NMPF
The National Milk Producers Federation, based in Arlington, VA, develops and carries out policies that advance the wellbeing 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 more than 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. Visit www.nmpf.org for more information.

About the Beef Checkoff Program
The Beef Checkoff Program was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States with qualifying state beef councils retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the CBB, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.

About NCBA
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), based in Centennial, Colo., and a contractor to the Beef Checkoff Program, has represented America’s cattle producers since 1898. As the largest association of cattle producers, NCBA works to create new markets and increase demand for beef.

ARLINGTON, VA – The National Milk Producers Federation voted Tuesday to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, an historic pact between 12 countries containing features that will help America’s dairy farmers in the future.

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NMPF’s forecast for 2016 MPP margins – based on early February milk and feed futures prices – indicates that margins early in 2016 may dip below the $8 threshold in the spring before strengthening in the latter half of 2016. As evidenced by the wide confidence interval, a high degree of uncertainty remains in milk and new crop feed prices.

The National Milk Producers Federation continues to accept applications for its National Dairy Leadership Scholarship Program for academic year 2016-2017. Applications must be received no later than Friday, April 8, 2016. 

Each year, NMPF awards scholarships to outstanding graduate students (enrolled in Master’s or Ph.D. programs) who are actively pursuing dairy-related fields of research that are of immediate interest to NMPF member cooperatives and the U.S. dairy industry at large. 

Graduate students pursuing research of direct benefit to milk marketing cooperatives and dairy producers are encouraged to submit an application. Applicants do not need to be members of NMPF to qualify.  The top scholarship applicant will be awarded the Hintz Memorial Scholarship, which was created in 2005 in honor of the late Cass-Clay Creamery Board Chairman Murray Hintz.

Recommended fields of study include, but are not limited to, Agriculture Communications and Journalism, Animal Health, Animal and/or Human Nutrition, Bovine Genetics, Dairy Products Processing, Dairy Science, Economics, Environmental Science, Food Science, Food Safety, Herd Management, and Marketing and Price Analysis. 

For an application or more information, please visit the NMPF website or call the NMPF office at 703-243-6111.