Despite little indication when intensive negotiations on the Pacific Rim trade deal will resume, NMPF remains optimistic the talks can be concluded successfully in a way that addresses the priorities of the U.S. dairy industry.

Meeting in Hawaii in July, trade ministers for the 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership nations made some progress but failed to reach agreement on several important issues, including access to dairy markets.

Key to the impasse on dairy was Canada’s refusal to significantly open its highly protected markets, the limited access offered by Japan, and New Zealand’s desire that the United States compensate it in dairy access to the U.S. market given the limited offers from Japan and Canada.

“Despite the stalemate on dairy, we are optimistic negotiators can bring the TPP talks to a successful conclusion soon, and we look forward to the resumption of intensive discussions,” said NMPF President and CEO Mulhern.

“At the same time,” Mulhern said, “we are continuing to make clear that we will not support a package that would make U.S. dairy farmers a net loser in this agreement. We are prepared to do our part, but others need to do theirs, too. The burden of this agreement cannot be carried by the United States.”

Mulhern urged dairy producers to keep telling their House and Senate members they support a balanced Pacific trade pact that benefits the U.S. dairy industry. U.S. producers now export the equivalent of one-seventh of their milk production, and both Canada and Japan are viewed as key future markets U.S. dairy products.

Madelyn Berner, a Syracuse University graduate with five years of journalism experience, has joined the NMPF communications team. She will work with Senior Vice President Chris Galen on growing the Federation’s presence on social media and the web – including an eventual revamp of the NMPF website.

A native of Arlington, Va., Berner has Iowa roots and is a long-time milk drinker. She replaces Sarah Olson, who left NMPF after eight years.

Berner has worked for several Washington-area news organizations – including the Washington bureau of Agence France-Presse – since graduating from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse in 2014. At the French news agency, Berner worked on the multimedia desk editing news videos. She also served as a staff writer for both Washingtonian Magazine and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

At Syracuse, Berner was managing editor of the campus newspaper, The Daily Orange. Between academic years, she held internships at Northern Virginia Magazine and DC Magazine.

There’s less than a month left for dairy farmers to sign up at their local Farm Service Agency office for 2016 coverage under the dairy Margin Protection Program. The second enrollment period under the new federal dairy safety net program closes September 30th.

To help farmers make decisions, NMPF has updated tools at www.FutureforDairy.com, a website serving as a clearinghouse for MPP information. Included are a brochure explaining the program and its importance to dairy farmers and a calculator allowing farmers to estimate future margins based on their forecasts of feed and milk prices.

MPP helps protect against the kind of catastrophic losses that many farmers experienced in 2009 and again in 2012. It allows farmers to insure the difference between milk prices and feed costs. Producers insure their operations on a sliding scale, deciding both how much of their production to cover and the level of margin to protect.

Through the first six months of 2015, the program has issued payments in each of the three bi-monthly coverage windows for those who elected the maximum $8 margin coverage.
 

In less than two months, hundreds of dairy industry leaders will converge in Orlando, Florida, for the joint annual meeting between the National Dairy Board (NDB), the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), and the United Dairy Industry Association (UDIA). “A Legacy of Leadership” will take place from October 26-28 at the Orlando World Center Marriott.

Farmers and other industry leaders will discuss the major trends and issues affecting today’s dairy industry, and how those trends will affect its future. The meeting will feature a special presentation from market expert Jeff Fromm on how best to reach millennial consumers, who are now controlling a significant share of the retail food dollar.  The meeting will also feature a panel discussion on animal care, and its significant across the food value chain.

With the days ticking away, it’s important to both register for the event and make hotel reservations. This year’s event features a new online registration site, Eventbrite, which is compatible with mobile phones. Please go to http://annualmeeting.dairy.org and register by Wednesday, October 7, 2015.

For hotel reservations, please visit https://aws.passkey.com/g/29748120 and mention “2015 NDB/NMPF/UDIA” to receive the group rate. The deadline for reservations is also October 7.

On the last day of August, NMPF urged the Obama Administration to hold off on the national enforcement of the new Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) regulation. This comes in response to a court decision suspending the regulation in some states, but not others.

On August 27th, the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota halted implementation of the water regulation, granting a temporary injunction in favor of 13 states that brought suit in North Dakota against the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. The EPA said after the court ruling that it would not implement the rule in the 13 states involved: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Concerned about the potential for confusion and inconsistent application of the regulation following the court’s ruling, NMPF sent a letter to the EPA and Army Corps asking the government to suspend enforcement of the WOTUS nationwide.

“We ask that EPA and the Corp of Engineers use their enforcement discretion and cease application of the recent WOTUS rule in all 50 states, until such time as it can be evenly applied in every state,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern.

NMPF’s letter continues: “Clean water is central to healthy ecosystems, secure water supplies for human and animal consumption, and to the production of milk and other dairy products. We are committed to working with the EPA and COE to find effective ways to achieve these important goals.”

Cooperatives Working Together member cooperatives, operating in a very competitive world market, won 12 contracts to sell 3.673 million pounds of dairy products to customers in five countries. The 2.2 million pounds of American-type cheeses, 661,387 pounds of butter, and 828,938 pounds of whole milk powder will be shipped from August 2015 through January 2016.

These contracts bring the year-to-date totals through August to 45.3 million pounds of cheese, 28.063 million pounds of butter, and 34.106 million pounds of whole milk powder. In total, CWT-assisted transactions will move the equivalent of 1.299 billion pounds of milk on a milkfat basis to customers in 33 countries on five continents. These totals are adjusted for contract cancellations.

Developed by NMPF, CWT is a voluntary export assistance program supported by dairy farmers producing 70 percent of the nation’s milk. By helping to move U.S. dairy products into world markets, CWT helps keep maintain and grow U.S dairy farmers share of these expanding markets which, in turn, keeps dairy farmer milk prices at reasonable levels.

There’s been a steady decline in the number of farms across the developed world over the decades, but because of the national security, economic and political importance of rural communities, the clout of farmers remains a potent force.  The proof of this assertion was on display recently at the trade bargaining table in Hawaii, where government representatives from 12 countries spanning the Pacific Ocean tried in July to wrap up negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  There were, and still are, several sticking points to resolve in the TPP, but none is as important as agricultural trade, and especially trade in dairy products.

The most recent round of TPP talks ended July 31st with a deadlock because dairy farmers in Canada – and to a lesser extent, Japan – don’t want to see new competition from U.S. producers. While these two major countries seek to maintain limited access to their markets, our own industry is focused on growing its presence in the world. Part of this focus is driven by necessity. We produce a lot more milk than our domestic market needs. If we don’t continue to increase our exports, we’ll be drowning in a sea of excess milk that will further erode producer prices.

Another part of this focus is driven by demographics and the recognition that the future major growth opportunities lie outside our borders. The domestic market is critically important to our industry, and America’s consumers will always be our bedrock. But incremental growth in the U.S. will not be enough to absorb our farmers’ incredibly productive output. The rapid growth in Asia’s population presents a great potential opportunity for our industry, and TPP, if done right, will be critically important in terms of establishing the foundation and framework for that growth opportunity.

As we push Canada and Japan to be more ambitious in their approach on dairy in TPP, we recognize that New Zealand, a powerhouse in world dairy trade, will get some additional access to our market – that much was clear from day one of these negotiations. But we have insisted that any agreement must provide clear benefits for our industry, and at minimum, achieve a balanced market access outcome. We must obtain at least as much new access in Canada and Japan as is granted in new access to our market. The U.S. cannot be the dumping ground – the market of last resort – to mop up the excess when world markets are overburdened.

Until we can achieve an agreement that can be supported by dairy, the entire TPP agreement remains in a stalemate.

It’s important to recognize that trade deals almost never achieve completely free trade between nations. They are more about managing the terms of how countries allow some additional access to their markets from other nations while seeking to win new markets for their exports.  And sometimes trade agreements will trade off the needs and goals of one part of a country’s economy for another.  In the past, American agriculture has unfortunately been a sacrificial offering in order to win concessions for other sectors such as manufactured goods, pharmaceuticals or software.  It’s a high-stakes balancing act.

That’s why NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council have been adamant that the Trans-Pacific Partnership must not result in a one-way increase in net dairy imports into the U.S.  Japan and Canada are major, mature consumer markets. And while our products have a toehold in those countries, they still have significant restrictions that protect their domestic dairy markets.  The TPP is not going to completely wipe away those barriers, but they need to be significantly reduced in order to generate an agreement that provides opportunity for America’s dairy farmers. 

As the talks drag on into the fall, and the pressure mounts on Canada and Japan, the good news is that members of the Senate and House are watching, and advocating the need to achieve a positive deal for dairy.  Earlier this summer, key leaders in trade and agricultural policy – in both the Senate and House, in both political parties – reminded U.S. trade negotiators of how important dairy trade is to the final TPP equation.  These communications delivered a powerful and unequivocal signal to the highest levels of the U.S. government that, unless this agreement can deliver a deal that dairy can support, the chances of the TPP getting approved on Capitol Hill are at risk.  The political support for U.S. dairy farmers was clear in the support for our key messages about what an acceptable TPP dairy result looks like.

In addition to more market access to other countries in the TPP region, the U.S. dairy sector is pushing hard to improve the sanitary and phytosanitary regulations that govern dairy commerce so that our exports don’t unfairly get excluded because of bogus quality or safety concerns.  The fact is that our milk quality is beyond dispute.  Unfortunately, we need trade agreements to drive home the point that artificial trade barriers, based on illusory excuses about dairy quality, need to be eliminated.

Another promising advancement in the TPP negotiations has been the issue of geographical indications, which, if used inappropriately, can limit common food names in export markets to those products from a specific region or country. Among those potentially hurt by an expansion of geographical indications are U.S. dairy producers and processors that have relied for decades on well-established cheese names like parmesan and feta. TPP trade ministers appear to have tentatively agreed to language which would foster improved protections for common food names and push back against aggressive European efforts to block out our products.

So the talks will continue, informally for now, and perhaps more formally later this fall, on several important TPP issues.  The stakes for America’s dairy farmers are high, and so is NMPF’s engagement. At the end of the day we want a fair deal or no deal at all.