ARLINGTON, Va. – Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), urged Congress to make passing a new farm bill a top priority in its lame-duck session that starts tomorrow, saying that dairy farmers harmed by low prices would benefit from the certainty and improvements likely to be part of the final law.

“Given the sustained low prices dairy farmers have faced, coupled with uncertainty in agricultural trade policy, it is more important than ever that Congress quickly enact the 2018 Farm Bill before adjourning for the year,” said Mulhern. “Both the House and Senate-passed bills make important reforms to dairy policy, making the Margin Protection Program a more effective safety net for producers and expanding producer access to additional risk management options.”

NMPF, whose member cooperatives produce the majority of milk in the United States, commended House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders for working to negotiate a final 2018 Farm Bill this year.

“We are grateful for the hard work the bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have put in to get us to this point,” said Mulhern. “We stand ready to work with them and their colleagues in the coming weeks to get the job done.”

National Milk has actively worked toward securing federal aid for dairy farmers at levels appropriate to the hardships producers face. On Oct. 24, NMPF urged Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to consider four separate analyses into trade-related dairy losses that each indicate damages of more than $1 billion when USDA calculates its second round of trade-mitigation payments slated for later this year. NMPF members reiterated that call the following week at their annual meeting in Phoenix.

###

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.

(Adapted from prepared remarks before the membership of the National Milk Producers Federation in Phoenix, Oct. 30, 2018)

I’ve told you before how proud I am to work for you, but I have never been more proud to work on your behalf than this year – as challenging as it has been — and to work with our great staff.

You heard a lot from them today on a number of challenging and important issues that we are dealing with. You heard about the farm bill and the need to fix the safety net; the need to improve the tariff mitigation package to address the lack of support that has been provided for our industry; the trade policy challenges that lay before us. You heard about the efforts through the FARM program to make sure that we continue to earn consumer trust because you don’t have a business if we don’t have a market for our product.

But another area where we face challenges for our product is through the fake foods that are popping up in the marketplace using dairy terminology to promote their sale. If you come to these meetings and ever wonder about the value of your time spent here, I want to tell you a story.

It was at this annual meeting two years ago that we talked about the problem of imitation foods. They’re not new concerns. I remember writing to the Food and Drug Administration in the early 1980s about what was then this imitation product called soy “milk,” and how the FDA was turning a blind eye toward it. The FDA said at the time that understood it was an issue of standards of identity, but they said their focus was on food safety and they didn’t have the resources to deal with it.

After I heard our farmers raise these concerns at the meeting two years ago, it was clear it wasn’t enough to raise this issue with FDA on a one-off basis. When we heard from you we knew we needed to do a campaign to address this problem.  It resulted in legislation by Senator Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin, the DAIRY PRIDE ACT. That bill has a House counterpart and strong bipartisan support on both sides of Capitol Hill.

But I felt at the time that legislation wasn’t going to be enough to get things done.  We’d have to use other avenues. And that’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve been raising this issue in the media and taking it directly to FDA. The message we’ve sent is, these fake products are nutritionally inferior and we’re not going away until FDA enforces the law.

You know the products that are out there. Many of them are beverages that call themselves a form of milk: almond milk, coconut milk, oat milk. That’s the only time you will hear me say the word “milk” in association with those products, because they are definitely not dairy products. They have grown in market share and we are seeing more and more of them in the marketplace.

One example, Oatly, comes from Sweden, where it’s been marketed as something called “havre dryck.” I don’t think that’s a bad name — that’s what they should call it here! But when they marketed it here they called it oat milk. And then they had the temerity to write a letter to FDA and say you can’t force us to take the word milk off our label, because consumers wouldn’t know what it was. But they’ve been selling it as oat beverage in Sweden for 25 to 30 years! That’s the game here. It’s all marketing. Trying to get market share. And the reason they don’t call it “oat milk” in Sweden is because Swedish law forbids it. Here, FDA lets them get away with it.

But you know, it’s not just in the beverage category anymore. We’ve got fake products calling themselves yogurt. They have all the buzzwords that are hot in consumer products – artisan, whole food, probiotic. Whatever these marketers think will sell, they’ll call it.

Fake cheese, fake mozzarella. With the growth and improvements in food technology we’re going to see more and more of these products ripping off dairy terms, formulating it in a lab and selling it as milk. So, we’ve got beverages, we’ve got fake yogurts, we’ve got fake cheese, and now it’s moved into fake butter. Those plant-products starting to call themselves butter already meet an existing FDA standard of identity for a product. That product is called margarine. But what’s happening to margarine sales? They’re in long-term decline. Butter sales are going up. What’s a clever marketer to do? Don’t change the product, just change the name. And that’s what’s happening throughout the marketplace.

But none of them, not one of them, matches the nutritional package of milk. That is an issue of serious concern. Milk is the most important source of nine essential nutrients in the diets of children, according to USDA data. Our staff has reviewed over 300 of these fake products, examined the Nutrition Facts label, and we couldn’t find one that matched milk’s nutritional profile.

We’re looking at what other countries are doing.   We’re looking at Canada. We’ve had our problems with Canada on some dairy policy issues, but Canada’s got it right when it comes to labeling these products. The exact same product that’s allowed to be sold here as “almondmilk,” in Canada it’s called almond beverage. Canada has similar regulations on this matter as we do here in the U.S. The difference is that Canada enforces theirs while our FDA does not.

We live in a free market. These beverages aren’t going away, and consumers who want them should have every right to buy them – if they’re properly labeled. But they shouldn’t be labeled in misleading and deceptive ways. And that’s the issue we are raising.

The FDA has put out a request for information from the industry and consumers to consider in potential rule-making.  The comment period is open right now. We’ve got to take this on. We can win this. We’ve got to win this. It’s important to the future, and it’s important to consumers. We live in a country that’s overfed and undernourished. Part of why they’re undernourished and overfed is that they’re not consuming enough of the great nutrition in milk and dairy products. They’re getting too many empty calories. This FDA process can help address that. Let’s do this together.

    

VIEW BIO

PHOENIX, AZ – U.S. dairy farmers at their annual meeting here this week asked President Donald Trump to recognize the significant economic losses milk producers are suffering because of the administration’s implementation of Section 232 and 301 tariffs.

The duties have resulted in retaliatory tariffs against U.S. dairy exports, particularly in Mexico and China. They continue to cause severe economic harm to U.S. dairy farmers, according to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), as its board of directors adopted a resolution calling for aid commensurate to that damage.

“In light of the administration’s decision to establish a program to compensate farmers for the damage caused by these retaliatory tariffs, we call on the president to direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to provide assistance to dairy producers at a level that reflects the damage they have caused,” milk producers resolved at their meeting, held Oct. 28-31 in Phoenix. Farmer losses will exceed $1 billion this year, according to four separate estimates cited by NMPF. An initial USDA mitigation package announced in August allocated $127 million to dairy.

“Dairy farmers spoke strongly and clearly that the government needs to act to alleviate the hardship America’s milk producers face as a result of the trade disputes,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “We look forward to working with USDA and White House on solutions that address the cost of the trade war that has exacerbated the economic struggle facing dairy producers and the cooperatives they own.”

Farmers attending the conference also discussed the state of dairy profitability and the future of dairy cooperatives in a time of consolidation. Guest speakers included American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall, and David Wasserman, House Editor for The Cook Political Report. Mulhern also detailed NMPF’s efforts to fight misleading labeling of plant-food-based beverages as milk, and moderated a panel of dairy executives including Mike Doyle, president and CEO of Foremost Farms; Beth Ford, president and CEO of Land O’Lakes, Inc.; Ed Mullins, CEO of Prairie Farms; and Ed Townley, president and CEO of Agri-Mark.

###

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.

PHOENIX, AZ – Citing data that shows consumers are being misled about the nutritional merits of cow’s milk versus plant-based imitators, NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern today called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to end deceptive labeling of fake-dairy products.

“The plant-based food and beverage industry has used FDA inaction as a cover to sell consumers a product that is heavily processed to look like real milk, but doesn’t deliver what matters most: a consistent, high-quality package of nutrients,” Mulhern said in remarks at NMPF’s annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. “This is contrary to the national goal of a healthy population and FDA’s mission to promote transparency and fairness,” he said. The consumer research will be shared with FDA as the agency solicits information on the public health implications of mislabeled, imitation dairy products.

In a survey by IPSOS, commissioned by Dairy Management Inc.:

• 73 percent of consumers believed that almond-based drinks had as much or more protein per serving than milk. Milk has eight times as much protein.
• 53 percent said they believed that plant-based food manufacturers labeled their products “milk” because their nutritional value is similar. That is not the case.
• Misinformation was more prevalent among those who only bought plant-based drinks. Of those buyers, 68 percent strongly or somewhat agreed those drinks have the same nutritional content as dairy milk. In reality, those beverages do not.

With media reports suggesting an increase in the number of U.S. children suffering from nutritionally inadequate diets, milk labeling “is much more than a sideshow over whether consumers can tell the difference between an almond or a cow,” Mulhern said. Consumers deserve more respect than that – but FDA needs to help them out by clearly distinguishing between true milk and water-heavy, nutrition-poor imitators, he said.

“FDA needs to immediately end the application of the term ‘milk’ to non-dairy products,” he said.

###

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), based in Arlington, Virginia, 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 U.S. Trade Representative this week announced progress in talks with the Philippines under the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). U.S. dairy producers and processors appreciate the Administration’s work to preserve and deepen market access ties with a country that purchased $243 million in U.S. dairy products last year.

In a joint statement released about the recent achievements in resolving trade issues under the TIFA, both governments agreed that they should work together to benefit agriculture. This is viewed as a promising development given Southeast Asia’s growing market for dairy products.

U.S. officials noted that the Philippines has been handling geographical indications (GIs) in a fair manner that preserves the use of common names and welcomed their commitment to “discuss ways to ensure that Philippine laws, regulations, and policies do not restrict or prohibit entry of U.S. products in the Philippine market.”

To further that goal, the Philippines confirmed that “it will not provide automatic GI protection, including to terms exchanged as part of a trade agreement.” Tom Vilsack, president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, said this assurance is significant because of the European Union’s ongoing campaign to use GIs to block U.S. dairy sales.

“The Philippine economy is strengthening, its population is growing, and more consumers are moving up into the middle class,” explained Vilsack. “In short, there is tremendous potential for greater U.S. dairy sales in the Philippines and this week’s announcement gets us a step closer to realizing this opportunity. USTR’s work to keep those doors open today and pursue ways to crack them open further in the future is certainly appreciated by dairy producers and processors across the country.”

National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) President and CEO Jim Mulhern said developments are positive for dairy producers facing economic challenges.

“The rural economy is having a rough time, dairy prices are low, and our farmers are struggling,” Mulhern said. “Trade will be key to turning things around. USTR’s work to forge positive pathways with the Philippines is a building block in that process. The next step is to move forward with a free trade agreement to allow our industry to compete head to head with other suppliers in the region.”

U.S. negotiators also secured a commitment from the Philippines to consider petitions for voluntarily lowering tariff rates on certain agricultural products, including cheeses. This is a step in the right direction toward U.S. exporters bridging the competition gap created by trade agreements between the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.

#  #  #

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 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.

ARLINGTON, VA – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) needs to better reflect the dairy-farm incomes lost to tariff retaliation when it calculates its next round of trade mitigation payments, the National Milk Producers Federation said today.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, NMPF Chairman and dairy farmer Randy Mooney cited four studies illustrating that milk producers have experienced more than $1 billion in lost income since May, when the retaliatory tariffs were first placed on dairy goods in response to U.S. levies on foreign products. In contrast, the first round of USDA trade mitigation payments, announced in August, allocated only $127 million to dairy farmers.

“We are ever-grateful for your advocacy on agricultural trade, which is crucial to the economic health of our industry,” wrote Mooney, who operates Mooney Dairy in Rogersville, Missouri, with his wife, Jan. “However, our members are greatly concerned about the level of aid that was provided in the initial effort.”

The letter details four analyses, including two independent studies using sophisticated economic modeling, that each show losses to dairy producers far above USDA’s initial payment level.

• NMPF analyzed the CME dairy futures-based milk prices through the end of 2018, based on the settlement prices in late May, just before retaliatory tariffs were announced, with those same prices after tariffs had been thoroughly incorporated into market expectations.  The expected impact of the retaliation may result in roughly $1.5 billion in lost revenue for producers during the second half of 2018.
• USDA’s own monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) showed a drop in its forecast milk prices for the full 2018 calendar year of $0.70/cwt., after the imposition of the tariffs. The WASDE estimate amounts to a loss in dairy farm income of $1.5 billion for the year.
• An Informa Agribusiness Consulting study estimated that the tariffs would lower U.S. dairy farm income by $1.5 billion for the full year 2018.
• The Center for North American Studies at Texas A&M University, estimated an annual loss of $1.17 billion.

“These estimates show that farmer losses from the tariffs will notably exceed $1 billion in 2018,” Mooney wrote. “Significant income losses will continue” if tariffs imposed by Mexico and China – two of the largest dairy export markets for the United States – remain in place.

Perdue has said a second trade mitigation payment to producers may be made this year, after additional calculations of farmer losses.

“We are eager to work with you on a plan that better reflects the struggles dairy producers across the country have faced due to the tariffs,” Mooney wrote. “Thank you for considering the critical implications of these trade challenges for us as dairy farmers and cooperative owners.”

###

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 following news release was issued on Oct. 23, 2018, by the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

NAD Refers Advertising Claims by The a2 Milk Company for Further Review After Company Declines to Participate in NAD Proceeding

New York, NY – Oct. 23, 2018 – The National Advertising Division has referred advertising claims made by The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) for its a2 Milk product to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for further review, after the advertiser declined to participate in a review of its advertising claims, including claims that its product is “Easier on digestion” and “May help some avoid discomfort.”

NAD is an investigative unit of the advertising industry’s system of self-regulation. It is administered by the Council of Better Business Bureau.

The claims at issue were initially challenged by the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF). The challenger maintained that a2MC falsely promises consumers that its product is “easier on digestion” as compared to conventional milk, and that consumers can “avoid digestive discomfort” and will “feel the difference.” The challenger also stated that a2MC falsely claims that conventional milk is likely to induce “painful bloating, wind, cramps, [gut] inflammation” and other uncomfortable symptoms.

According to NMPF, the research underlying a2MC’s claims contains errors in study design, methodology, and population selection and is unreliable and clinically insignificant.

The challenger argued that a2MC’s health claims and the scientific theory underlying its claims are unsupported and that the insufficiency of a2MC’s evidence has been acknowledged by governmental regulators including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), and the New Zealand Food Standards Authority (NZFSA).

The advertiser declined to participate in the NAD proceeding and asked NAD to administratively close the matter.

The advertiser noted that the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch (CDFA), reviewed the advertiser’s substantiation for core claims critiqued in the NMPF’s Complaint and found that the claims appearing on the a2 Milk label complied with Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations and the California Food and Agriculture Code. a2MC further asserted that the claim, “Love milk again” is puffery.

Further, the advertiser maintained that NMPF’s challenge selectively presents incomplete and outdated research and observations made without the benefit of recent research, including irrelevant references to foreign regulatory review of prior unrelated claims.

NAD acknowledged the advertiser’s position, but noted that in light of the advertiser’s decision against participating in the self-regulatory forum, NAD has referred the matter to the FTC.

Note: A recommendation by NAD to modify or discontinue a claim is not a finding of wrongdoing and an advertiser’s voluntary discontinuance or modification of claims should not be construed as an admission of impropriety. It is the policy of NAD not to endorse any company, product, or service. Decisions finding that advertising claims have been substantiated should not be construed as endorsements.

###

About Advertising Industry Self-Regulation:  The Advertising Self-Regulatory Council establishes the policies and procedures for advertising industry self-regulation, including the National Advertising Division (NAD), Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), National Advertising Review Board (NARB), Electronic Retailing Self-Regulation Program (ERSP) and Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program (Accountability Program.) The self-regulatory system is administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

Self-regulation is good for consumers. The self-regulatory system monitors the marketplace, holds advertisers responsible for their claims and practices and tracks emerging issues and trends. Self-regulation is good for advertisers. Rigorous review serves to encourage consumer trust; the self-regulatory system offers an expert, cost-efficient, meaningful alternative to litigation and provides a framework for the development of a self-regulatory solution to emerging issues.

To learn more about supporting advertising industry self-regulation, please visit us at: www.asrcreviews.org.

After decades of NMPF efforts to halt misleading labeling of imitation dairy foods, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it’s opening a comment period this fall to review the marketing practices of plant-based foods.

“The FDA has concerns that the labeling of some plant-based products may lead consumers to believe that those products have the same key nutritional attributes as dairy products, even though these products can vary widely in their nutritional content,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in the Sept. 27 announcement. “It is important that we better understand consumers’ expectations of these plant-based products compared to dairy products.”

The FDA comment docket is set to close just after Thanksgiving, but NMPF has requested an extension. The organization also plans to submit comments that will explain why the agency must enforce its own labeling regulations that limit the use of standardized dairy terms to products that come from an animal. NMPF also will provide its members and other dairy stakeholders information they can use to weigh in with FDA.

“We are pleased that after years of regulatory inertia, the FDA is now addressing our concerns about how these plant-based products are inappropriately marketed to consumers,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “The issues raised by this docket acknowledge many of the same concerns we’ve brought to light over the last four decades: that plant-based products are packaged, merchandized and sold in the same way as real dairy foods, yet provide fewer nutrients and therefore cannot be considered suitable substitutes.”

In addition to demonstrating the superior nutritional benefits of real milk, NMPF’s comments will show how a standardized dairy food – like milk, yogurt or butter — is defined by its inherent characteristics, including how and where it is sourced, its sensory attributes, and its performance properties.

The comment period comes after a July 26 FDA public meeting on government nutrition and labeling standards, during which NMPF also made its case for government action. Gottlieb said before the hearing that the agency will address deceptive marketing tactics, and recognized the issue needs greater clarity. He has said that plant-based copycats are not the foods that have been standardized under the name “milk” and often vary widely in their nutrition.

NMPF also submitted comments on another, but related issue: the regulation of foods produced using cell-culture technology. On Sept. 27, NMPF submitted comments to FDA on the issue, suggesting that another important factor be considered within the discussion: the agency’s willingness and ability to enforce its own existing standards of identity – on these new products as well as plant-based alternatives. The U.S. dairy industry could be affected by the use of genetically modified yeast to produce proteins that share a chemical identity with milk proteins, NMPF said.