After months of negotiations between Congress and the White House, the House overwhelmingly passed an improved U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement on Dec. 19. The next step is for the Senate to swiftly ratify the deal, which provides tangible benefits to dairy producers.

The trade pact contains several provisions specifically focused on improving export prospects for the U.S. dairy including USMCA’s elimination of Canada’s harmful Class 7 dairy program and the deal’s assurances that the use of many common food names will not be impeded in Mexico. The agreement is expected to add $548 million in dairy-farm revenues in its first six years of implementation.

In addition, important advancements made during negotiations between lawmakers and the White House will strengthen USMCA, including more-effective enforcement measures that will give the dairy industry greater assurance and improves tools that will put USMCA’s reforms into place.

America’s dairy farmers are counting on the Senate to move quickly to finalize USMCA, without which the industry will continue to wait for the agreement’s upgrades to NAFTA.

“USMCA will expand trade opportunities with our most valuable partners and secure immediate benefits for our rural communities,” said Jim Mulhern, NMPF president and CEO.

USMCA promises to become a template for future deals as it helps restore international confidence in the U.S. as a trading partner and encourages progress toward other agreements. Tools to keep up the pressure on Congress to complete USMCA can be found here.

Dairy farmers ended 2019 with a string of positive steps that have set the stage for more progress in 2020 – progress that, with just a few more steps, will mean real gains for U.S. dairy producers.

The success that’s closest in sight is final congressional approval of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to succeed NAFTA. Thanks to some fruitful negotiations between the White House and House Democrats, the House approved the agreement December 19, just in time to raise some holiday cheer before Christmas. Dairy’s gains under USMCA would be substantial – an estimated $528 million in increased revenues over the agreement’s first six years, as well as protection for common cheese names and enforcement mechanisms to ensure repeal of Canada’s problematic Class 6 and Class 7 milk price schemes.

This achievement wouldn’t have occurred without the patient determination of trade advocates in Washington – including our own staff in collaboration with the U.S. Dairy Export Council and the entire dairy community – and the grassroots efforts of farmers across the country. Still, the effort isn’t over. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said no Senate vote on USMCA will occur until after an impeachment trial is finished early next year.

We’re hopeful this delay won’t be long. But they’re always nerve-wracking, as political tectonics can shift quickly, especially in a presidential election year. Until the ink is dry from President Trump’s pen, we won’t let up in advocating for USMCA’s passage. It’s already come a long way. 2020 will see an immediate, final push for passage, and we will continue to lead that effort.

The next December accomplishment that will require more lift in 2020 is agricultural labor reform. The House reached an important milestone on December 11, when it approved its first farm-worker labor package since 1986. That, along with Senate passage of agricultural guest-worker provisions in a failed immigration reform effort in 2013, have been the closest Congress has come toward resolving the agricultural labor crisis in more than a generation.

We supported the House bill because it would create a workable guest-worker program for dairy, a major improvement over current policy. The overall bill is far from perfect. But it can only be improved – and a final law passed – if the Senate passes its own plan, which then opens a path for negotiation and modification with the House. That places our focus on the Senate as it crafts its own legislation. Such legislation is essential to alleviate dairy’s unique labor needs. It will be important in coming months for the Senate to pass a bill, then work through a conference committee to achieve final congressional approval. It is a tall order, but a necessary one, and one we feel is possible in 2020.

Finally, we are encouraged by the arrival of new leadership at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Through his statements in a colloquy with Senator Tammy Baldwin at his confirmation hearing, Dr. Stephen Hahn showed an understanding of the importance of mislabeled plant-based beverages as a public-health issue, pledging to explore the issue of fake dairy immediately after his confirmation. With the facts, public opinion and a significant part of the marketplace on our side, it’s crucial to keep this item on the FDA’s agenda in 2020 and usher in its successful resolution.

Securing FDA enforcement of rules against misuse of dairy terms on plant-based products has long been difficult — not because it’s unimportant, but because the FDA’s wide portfolio, which ranges from opioids and teen vaping to drug approvals and food-safety inspections, makes it easy for other important matters to be brushed aside. That simply can’t happen this time. Given the attention paid to it by Hahn’s predecessor, Scott Gottlieb, increased consumer interest in this issue, and congressional urging to get the job done, 2020 is a golden opportunity for real progress in the regulatory fight against dairy imposters.

On each of these issues, we have the power to influence. On our website, we have pages that help direct response on these and other important issues. Engagement is crucial in the year ahead. As always, we will devote our full resources to the betterment of our members, and we hope for your help as well.

Happy New Year. We’ve made a lot of progress. The best is yet to come.

ARLINGTON, Va. – “Big Dairy.” One of the strangest terms attached to the industry. As seen in fear-mongering headlines, Big Dairy is used to de-personalize individual dairy farmers and imply some large, faceless force foisting an agenda on unsuspecting consumers. So, who exactly is it? Maybe by figuring out what Big Dairy is – or isn’t – some light could be shed on what’s real, and what’s contrived, in debates about dairy and its presence in the marketplace.

Perhaps Big Dairy means dairy farms themselves. Consolidation has been a fact of life for all of agriculture for generations, and family farms indeed are getting bigger. Even so, according to the latest USDA Census of Agriculture, nearly three-quarters of U.S. dairy farms have fewer than 100 cows on them. Of course, most production comes from the largest farms, but even the biggest ones – the 189 U.S. dairies with more than 5,000 cows as of 2017 – are too numerous and geographically dispersed to create a monolithic giant. And more than 95 percent of all dairy farms, regardless of size, are family-run farms. That’s far from faceless.

That rules out farmers. But what about dairy corporations? The dairy industry boasts some impressive-sized businesses. Land O’Lakes is ranked #212 on the Fortune 500, and Dairy Farmers of America would make the list too, if it were publicly traded. That might be Big Dairy, except – DFA and Land O’Lakes are farmer-owned cooperatives. If that’s what people mean when they talk about “Big Dairy,” then­­­ Big Dairy contains an awful lot of small and medium-sized family farms. And these cooperatives are tiny compared to, say, Big Healthcare, (four entries among Fortune’s top 10 companies) Big Oil (four of them in Fortune’s top 25), or Big Tech (six in the top 50).

But maybe it’s not about raw size. Maybe Big Dairy is a myth invented by those who want to make family dairy farmers seem “big” to advance some contrasting image of their competitors – who want to be seen as plucky, usually plant-based, upstarts taking on Big Dairy with highly touted “innovation.”

Let’s explore this. Take, for example, Perfect Day, allegedly just a humble innovator with nothing to offer but a thousand $20-a-pint tubs of imitation ice cream … and startup funding from Temasek – a venture-capital arm of the government of Singapore — and Archer-Daniels-Midland, an agri-business behemoth with $64 billion in annual sales that ranks #49 on the Fortune 500. Other plant- and cell-based alternatives are financed by Jeff Bezos (worth roughly $115 billion, the world’s richest man at the end of 2019) and Bill Gates (net worth over $100 billion) – not exactly little guys, to say the least. In fact, if you added up the gross receipts of all 40,000 dairy farmers in the United States last year (an estimated $39.9 billion), you’d only be worth about two-fifths as much as Jeff Bezos. So-called “Big Dairy” will never compete with that.

To be sure: Dairy is a significant U.S. industry. As cited on the “Got Jobs?” campaign organized by dairy groups, including NMPF, the sector as a whole is responsible for nearly 3 million U.S. jobs and has an overall economic impact of more than $620 billion, including indirect effects. Dairy directly employs nearly 1 million Americans, with an impact of more than $206 billion. In agriculture and in the U.S. economy, we aren’t David to someone else’s Goliath. Whatever success we have is because we work hard and work together.

But dairy isn’t Goliath either, and wannabe Davids shouldn’t get a pass peddling false narratives. Dairy is family farmers, cooperatives and companies, of all sizes and types, who believe deeply in the health and nutrition of their products and stand up for it against its opponents — who usually aren’t anywhere near the underdogs they pretend to be. Creating nutritious products, day in and day out, is a big task. But it’s a challenge met collectively by a diverse set of people from farm to fork, who work together to feed the U.S. and the world.

Dairy issues matter. They warrant a robust discussion. Putting the term “Big Dairy” to rest would make it a more honest one.

Listen to the latest updates on trade and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act from NMPF Senior Vice President of Membership Services and Strategic Initiatives Chris Galen on Dairy Radio Now.

ARLINGTON, VA – The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) and National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) praised the House of Representatives for today approving legislation implementing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

“USMCA will bring tangible benefits to the U.S. dairy industry by upgrading trade rules, opening the Canadian market to U.S. dairy exports and preserving our valuable market access in Mexico,” said Tom Vilsack, president and CEO of USDEC. “Today’s bipartisan vote is indicative of the need to immediately secure these benefits for dairy and all of agriculture.”

“Today’s vote brings us one step closer to finalizing USMCA and securing a more certain future for America’s farmers and ranchers,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “It is imperative that the Senate act now to finalize USMCA.”

Ambassador Robert Lighthizer worked diligently alongside members of Congress to address outstanding concerns and deliver an improved trade pact. The House passage of USMCA and its broad range of support is a testament to their efforts.

USMCA makes important changes to Canada’s trade-distorting policies, reforms Canada’s controversial dairy pricing system and provides exclusive access to the Canadian market for U.S. farmers and manufacturers. The trade deal also strengthens our relationship with Mexico and establishes new protections for common cheese names, using a combination of approaches to protect the continued use of a number of generic cheese terms, such as parmesan and feta.

The National Milk Producers Federation commended Congress for including language in the report accompanying the final 2020 government funding measure to urge the Food and Drug Administration to finally enforce dairy-product standards of identity.

Both the House and Senate versions of the Agriculture-FDA bill report included language reaffirming bipartisan congressional concern with mislabeled imitation dairy products and directing FDA to enforce its own rules on labeling. The House and Senate passed the final compromise funding bill this week.

“We hope that the bipartisan, bicameral reminder from Congress, coupled with Dr. Stephen Hahn’s confirmation as FDA Commissioner earlier this month, will give FDA momentum to finally enforce standards of identity for dairy products,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “Plant-based mislabeling intentionally misleads consumers into purchasing nutritionally inferior products that bear dairy’s good name. It’s long past time for FDA to right this wrong, and we hope this message from Congress helps make it happen.”

The report reaffirms Congress’s concern “about the proliferation of products …. that include the names of dairy products that do not contain milk or ingredients derived from milk,” as stated in Senate language. To address the problem, the Senate asks FDA to report on “steps taken to enforce against dairy imitation products marketed using dairy names,” while House language “urges the FDA to continue its work toward ultimately enforcing standards of identity for dairy products.”

The final measure also provides funding for several critical programs that were authorized last year in the 2018 Farm Bill. These include the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network to help distressed farmers during challenging times; the Dairy Business Innovation program to help the dairy industry explore opportunities for innovation and modernization; and the Healthy Fluid Milk Incentives Program designed to increase consumption of fluid milk.

ARLINGTON, VA – To help consumers find real dairy foods in an increasingly confusing retail marketplace, the National Milk Producers Federation today unveiled a completely redesigned website for the REAL® Seal, www.realseal.com, complete with a buyer’s guide that helps steer shoppers to those brands that feature the REAL Seal and use only real milk.

This is the first significant change in the online presence for the REAL Seal since NMPF first assumed management of the Seal in 2012. The new website will contain more content to educate consumers about why they should look for the REAL® Seal on the foods they buy, while also continuing to help those companies using the Seal to enhance their product marketing.

The new website will educate consumers about the REAL® Seal brand and the benefits of domestic dairy products, as only dairy foods made in America with American-produced cows’ milk are eligible to display the REAL® Seal.  The site showcases certified brands and products, and makes it easier for users to learn where to purchase them in retail locations.  It also streamlines the REAL® Seal application process to encourage more brands to apply for certification.

“NMPF continues to battle the misuse of dairy terms by plant-based products that seek to copy every aspect of real dairy, apart from nutrition,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF.  “The REAL® Seal allows us to work with food marketers to apply a simple, highly-recognizable icon on their products to help consumers separate the real from the fake.”

The new website both educates consumers about how real dairy foods compare to imitators, and explains how the REAL Seal program delineates which brands can use the seal.  The REAL Guide component of the website helps shoppers find certified brands and products displaying the Seal.

“We know many consumers want authentic foods made with quality and integrity. The dairy sector’s use of the REAL Seal, more than 40 years after it was created, is our ongoing commitment to help people define what’s real in the dairy case when they go shopping,” Mulhern said.  “As people increasingly turn to online sources for information about their shopping options, this new site is an important part of that mission.” The website is part of the REAL Seal’s suite of digital tools, including its Facebook and Pinterest communities.

ARLINGTON, Va. – To understand how dairy can be a part of climate solutions, it’s important to be clear about the role it plays in greenhouse gas emissions in the first place, said Dr. Frank Mitloehner, a professor in animal science at the University of California-Davis.

“Comparing cows versus cars is a major flaw” in how climate impacts are measured, he said, because agriculture is part of a carbon life cycle, rather than an extraction of resources that have been in the ground for millions of years. “We know every detail about the impact of dairies on greenhouse gases, on air and water pollutants, and so forth. We know what these impacts are, and we know how to further mitigate those,” Mitloehner said.

To listen to the full podcast, click here. You can also find the Dairy Defined podcast on Spotify,  SoundCloud and Google Play. Broadcast outlets may use the MP3 file. Please attribute information to NMPF.

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The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), based in Arlington, VA, develops and carries out policies that advance dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. NMPF’s member cooperatives produce more than two-thirds of U.S. milk, making NMPF dairy’s voice on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. For more, visit www.nmpf.org.

From Jim Mulhern, President and CEO

“We congratulate Dr. Stephen Hahn on his bipartisan confirmation as FDA commissioner. Dr. Hahn will provide strong leadership and direction to an agency that, understandably, has been reticent to resolve important issues in the absence of a full-fledged leader.

“Dr Hahn showed in his confirmation hearing that he understands the public-health need to address the issue of mislabeled plant-based products inappropriately marketed using dairy terms. As this problem grows more acute, consumer deception about nutritional content increases, adding urgency to the need for the FDA to enforce its own rules.

“Dr. Hahn has voiced his support for ‘clear, transparent, and understandable labeling for the American people,’ and we urge him to act quickly on this issue at FDA, as he pledged during his confirmation hearing.”

Senior Vice President of Policy Strategy and International Trade Jaime Castaneda gives updates on the impact of USMCA on the dairy industry and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.