PHOENIX, AZ – National Dairy FARM Program participants Chris and Mary Kraft of Fort Morgan, Colorado, have won the 2018 National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) Award in the dairy category. The BQA Awards – announced today in Phoenix – recognize the nation’s leading beef and dairy producers who demonstrate a commitment to the highest quality animal care.

Chris and his wife Mary started their own dairy business, which has since grown to encompass two operations near Fort Morgan. Badger Creek Farm is considered home, where they and son Stratton milk 1,300 cows. Quail Ridge Dairy is 3 miles south, where they milk 4,300 Holsteins. Chris is both a National Milk Producers Federation board member – focusing on animal care and sustainability issues – and a board director with Dairy Farmers of America (DFA).

“Both Chris and Mary are passionate advocates for quality milk production and never waver from their commitment to make sure the cows on their farms are content, comfortable and well cared for,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “They are well deserving of this prestigious award.”

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a contractor to the Beef Checkoff, announced the winners of its prestigious 2018 Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) Awards today at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association annual meeting in Phoenix. The awards honor outstanding beef and dairy producers and marketers that demonstrate the best animal care and handling principles as part of their day-to-day operations. Awards were given in five categories: Cow-Calf, Dairy, Feedyard, Marketer and Educator of the Year.

“By combining their passion with a focus on preventative health management, the farm showcases their commitment to BQA guidelines in every step of their dairy operation,” BQA said in its announcement. “What makes the Krafts unique is their two-farm operation. One site houses healthy cattle. The other manages animals that may need a little extra ‘TLC.’ By using this two-site system, Kraft Family Dairies has been able to focus their management appropriately to enhance the well-being of their herds.”

NMPF and its National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Animal Care Program partners with both NCBA and BQA, working closely to create valuable producer resources on stockmanship, dairy beef welfare and quality, and animal care. The two organizations also work closely on stakeholder engagement and customer outreach.

“We’re proud of our ongoing partnership with the BQA program, and appreciate their recognition of one of our leading FARM Program participants with this award,” said Emily Meredith, NMPF chief of staff. “This award demonstrates that, through collaboration and outreach, producers can be recognized for the work they do in upholding industry standards and their participation in programs like FARM.”

###

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.

One of the most obvious trends in marketing today is that consumers are seeking assurances about how their food is produced, and consumer goods companies, as well as restaurants and retailers, are working hard to deliver those assurances. But providing assurances is no longer as easy as generating an image and creating a story. Instead, dairy customers are looking for documented, verifiable evidence that their food is being produced in a responsible manner.

Dairy foods have a great nutritional story behind them, as no category offers the same consistent package of vitamins and minerals for such a low cost in such a variety of appealing forms. That reality once was enough to win the marketing battle. We all know that for a variety of reasons, however, the promotional truisms of the 20^th century no longer hold sway.  Consumers – at least some of them – take low-cost nutrition for granted, and now want to hear more about where their food originated and under what conditions.  And those stories about the provenance of food need facts and evidence to back them up.

The marketplace is well past the point where people will simply take proclamations about happy cows for granted.  Key performance metrics and data points are augmenting brands’ use of icons and slogans, as the influence of social media opens up barn doors and informs the marketing process.

In the dairy community, we have the National Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program to deliver those metrics, assisting the entire value chain in telling the honest story about America’s dairy farms and the cows in their care. We’re now in the ninth year of operation for the FARM Program, and the need to leverage this national benchmark for dairy cow care is greater today than it was in 2009, when NMPF worked with its member cooperatives and Dairy Management Inc. to launch the initiative.

That need is greater because the entire livestock sector is facing growing levels of scrutiny about animal care overall, as well as challenges to certain practices involving the production of meat, eggs and milk.  Some of this focus certainly has been driven by those who consume no animal products and are motivated by a desire to eliminate the use of livestock. Late last year, our industry was confronted by a series of undercover videos in south Florida, promulgated by a new animal rights group, the Animal Recovery Mission. While the videos showed conduct that was unacceptable and did not meet our FARM Program standards, it was the program’s established protocols and our strong relationships with key customers that helped farmers weather the storm.

Since the incident, FARM Program participants in Florida and across the supply chain pulled together to identify where things went wrong, and will continue to use the incident as a teachable moment to bring farmers up to speed with the latest version of the FARM Program. This includes extensive requirements for employee training and management — two key issues highlighted in the Florida videos. There’s certainly more work to be done to help our FARM Program participants meet the program’s standards and emphasize to their employees the importance of top-notch animal care and handling.

The recent situation in Florida has reinforced one of the core principles of the FARM Program: continuous improvement. Our customers are in the business of selling dairy foods, and we must give them the tools to respond to the questions that arise about dairy animal care. Part of that is assuring our customers that as dairy farmers and members of the cooperative community, our work on animal care is never done — that we’re always striving to do better for our consumers and our cows.

The FARM Program’s animal care standards comprise dozens of different criteria involving the care of dairy cattle throughout the course of their lives, and these standards evolve with new research on animal health and wellbeing.  With 98 percent of the milk supply now enrolled in the program, we are collecting hundreds of thousands of data points to assess how our industry is delivering on its promises to be good stewards. Our focus will remain on inclusion, education and training to maximize the effectiveness of the program.

Our customers — both here and abroad — believe in the FARM Program’s spirit of continuous improvement, and acknowledge that the alternative to having a widely utilized, national program is a fragmented system of competing programs that would be nearly impossible for dairy farmers to implement in a meaningful way.  That’s one reason why we recently worked to ensure that the FARM Program is recognized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), making it the first livestock animal care program in the world to attain that status. ISO compliance means that dairy customers can trust that their products are held to stringent, internationally recognized animal welfare standards.

Our industry’s story about dairy animal care continues to evolve. What I’m most proud of is how far we’ve come — together — in the last nine years. The program’s strength is found not only in its standards and implementation, but also in the partnerships and trust we’ve built with customers. That trust allows us to celebrate collective successes in animal care, and to come together during challenges, harnessing our collective abilities to do better and come out stronger.

Washington, D.C. – Putting low-fat flavored milk back into schools will bolster the nutrition intake of America’s children, according to comments submitted today to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) by the nation’s leading dairy organizations.

In joint comments, both the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) praised a proposed USDA rule for the positive effect it will have on the widely recognized problem of declining school milk consumption. In 2012, USDA eliminated low-fat flavored milk as an option in the school meal and a la carte programs, which resulted in students consuming 288 million fewer half-pints of milk from 2012-2015.

“Removing low-fat flavored milk causes schools to fail the test of how best to provide optimal nutrition for students,” said Dr. Beth Briczinski, Vice President of Dairy Foods and Nutrition for NMPF. “Fortunately, USDA recognizes the need to be more flexible in providing schools a range of milk options to enhance the dietary intake of the nine essential nutrients milk offers.”

Milk is the No. 1 source of three out of four nutrients of public health concern because they are under consumed: potassium, vitamin D and calcium. The dairy groups called the troubling trend “a threat to public health and to the nutritional intakes of all Americans, notably children and adolescents.”

“We appreciate USDA’s commitment to reverse declining school milk consumption by providing students with access to a variety of milk options, including the flavored milks they enjoy,” said Cary Frye, Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for IDFA.

In Summer 2017, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced USDA would reinstate low-fat flavored milk as an option allowed by the department. According to the interim rule published on the Federal Register site in November, school districts can solicit bids for low-fat flavored milk in the spring before the 2018-19 school year, giving milk processors time to formulate and produce a low-fat flavored milk that meets the specifications of a school district. It now allows schools to offer low-fat flavored milk during the next school year without requiring schools to demonstrate either a reduction in student milk consumption or an increase in school milk waste.

This interim rule, the comments noted, is consistent with the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), which does not suggest that flavored milk should be fat-free or that there is any reason to avoid low-fat flavored milk. In fact, the DGA “acknowledges the potentially positive role of moderate amounts of sweeteners in making foods like milk and yogurt more palatable.” Low-fat flavored milk offers the same nutritional benefits as white milk, but with a taste more children prefer. And with recent formulation changes, flavored milk is now available with significantly lower levels of calories and added sugar.

The two groups told USDA that its interim rule also aligns with the recent re-examination of fat – and dairy fat specifically – in the American diet. As more scientific studies find that advice to reduce fat intake was misguided, they also appear to show that full-fat dairy foods play either a neutral or beneficial role regarding the risk of several chronic diseases.

While the two dairy groups acknowledged that the interim rule does not compel schools to offer more milk options, both hope the option to do so will attract more students to school meal programs and increase the average daily consumption of the drink.

###

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 International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), Washington, D.C., represents the nation’s dairy manufacturing and marketing industry, which employs nearly 1 million skilled individuals, generates more than $39 billion in direct wages and has an overall economic impact of more than $200 billion. IDFA is the umbrella organization for the Milk Industry Foundation (MIF), the National Cheese Institute (NCI) and the International Ice Cream Association (IICA). Our members range from large multinational organizations to single-plant companies. Together they represent more than 85 percent of the milk, cultured products, cheese, ice cream and frozen desserts produced and marketed in the United States and sold throughout the world. Our diverse membership includes numerous food retailers, suppliers and companies that offer infant formula and a wide variety of milk ingredients.

ARLINGTON, VA – The eradication of Canada’s damaging pricing policies and exorbitant tariff barriers must be a key focus of U.S. government trade officials as members of the House Ways and Means Committee head to Montreal this weekend for the fifth round of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations, according to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC).

The removal of Canadian dairy policies that negatively impact U.S. dairy trade is the first of three critical goals both organizations said today must be emphasized by the U.S. trade delegation in Canada. In a letter to House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman David Reichert (R-WA) and Ranking Member Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) – both of whom are attending the talks – NMPF President & CEO Jim Mulhern and USDEC President & CEO Tom Vilsack urged lawmakers to also focus on preserving the current duty-free U.S. market access in Mexico granted by NAFTA, and improving other key areas affecting agricultural trade, such as preventing the misuse of geographical indications (GIs).

NMPF and USDEC Senior Vice President Jaime Castaneda is also in Montreal this week, engaging with trade officials from all three participating nations regarding the same objectives.

“Dairy trade with Canada has for too long been excluded from NAFTA’s benefits,” Mulhern said in the letter.

He added: “We need to finish the work started under NAFTA by doing away with Canada’s exorbitant dairy tariff walls and addressing Canada’s repeated use of policy tools such as the recent Class 7 pricing program that have consistently been aimed at harming U.S. dairy exports.”

The organizations have pushed for the complete removal of Canada’s Class 7 pricing program, “which in 2017 led to a 200-percent surge in Canadian skim milk powder exports around the world and slashed U.S. exports of certain dairy products,” according to the letter.

“Our exporters and their supplying farmers rely on those global markets, and Canada is using Class 7 to artificially compete in them at our expense,” Vilsack said. “Our concerns about this harmful program are very much shared by the world’s other leading dairy exporters, as well. We have the unique opportunity to actually resolve this problem via the NAFTA 2.0 process and it’s critical that we seize it.”

The Trump Administration’s November 2017 NAFTA objectives also call for addressing the concerns related to Class 7.

Preserving the existing duty-free market access for agricultural goods is also critical, the letter continued, especially regarding the country’s trade relationship with Mexico: “Without NAFTA, our exporters could lose their number-one market accounting for over $1 billion in dairy sales each year,” Mulhern and Vilsack noted in the letter.

NMPF and USDEC also pointed to important provisions on common food names and food safety standards that are part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), in which Canada and Mexico remain engaged. Agreements within the new CPTPP on limiting the use of GIs provide a strong platform on which to further build NAFTA to then safeguard global sales opportunities for cheeses like romano and feta that are produced in the United States.

The U.S. dairy groups asked the Ways and Means committee members traveling to Canada to help deliver the message “that the time for postponing is past, and Canada must now work seriously to make progress towards realizing a modernized NAFTA.”

###

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 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 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.

From Jim Mulhern, President and CEO, NMPF:

ARLINGTON, VA – “We are encouraged that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) principles for the next farm bill, released by Secretary Sonny Perdue on Wednesday, start with improving the farm safety net. The current farm bill’s dairy Margin Protection Program (MPP) has proven to be inadequate in providing help to America’s dairy farmers, and fixing it must be a priority in 2018.

“The USDA has taken significant steps at NMPF’s request in the past three years to improve the MPP, but now legislative changes are needed. NMPF continues to work with USDA and lawmakers in the House and Senate to strengthen the MPP to ensure meaningful assistance for those relying on it, and to find ways to expand risk management options for farmers. Making the MPP a reliable program for dairy farmers is vital to encouraging future farmer participation in the program. Additional risk management tools are also critical for the future of our dairy farmer community. Raising the current expenditure cap on programs available under USDA’s Risk Management Agency is vital to increasing the toolbox of options for farmers.

“As we begin 2018, milk prices and on-farm dairy margins are poor. It’s time to expand access to risk management tools and rectify the flaws in the MPP to create a workable safety net for dairy farmers.”

###

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.

An 11-year-old law intended to minimize the risk of terrorist attacks in the U.S. may require dairy farmers to adjust their use of hydrogen peroxide as a sanitizer, based on information shared recently with NMPF by the Department of Homeland Security.

In 2007, Congress required the DHS to create a Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program. The program identifies and regulates high-risk chemical facilities to ensure they have security measures in place to reduce the risk of a terrorist attack using certain chemicals. The CFATS regulation lists more than 300 chemicals of interest (COI) which, if held in specified quantities or concentrations, trigger reporting requirements to DHS. Facilities are required to report their chemical holdings within 60 days of coming into possession of a COI.

To assist agriculture, DHS granted an indefinite time extension for certain activities at agricultural facilities. The extension applies to chemicals used for soil preparation and the treatment of crops, feed, land, livestock, or other areas of an agricultural production facility (for example, ammonia used as a fertilizer falls under the extension, but propane for fuel or hydrogen peroxide for cleaning and water treatment must be reported).

In the past year, DHS has been visiting agricultural operations that may have their chemical use covered by the indefinite exemption. DHS has inspected several dairy farms where chemicals used to clean equipment and hydrogen peroxide was used to treat water – both potentially non-exempt activities. DHS subsequently contacted NMPF staff and asked for help in sharing the chemical security requirements with dairy producers.

Regarding hydrogen peroxide, the rule states that hydrogen peroxide with a 35% or higher concentration is a Chemical of Interest. If the concentration is below 35%, it is not a COI and it will not trigger reporting. NMPF urges dairy producers using hydrogen peroxide on their farms to immediately begin using a solution less than 35%, or ensure they have less than the threshold reporting quanitity of 400 pounds on site at any time. NMPF staff are also exploring whether other chemicals being used could trigger the rule. More information can be found here. Otherwise, contact Clay Detlefsen .

National Milk continues to advise dairy farmers not to file ammonia-related air emissions reports until an appeals court issues a mandate that triggers a reporting requirement – an action that could be taken later this month.

At issue is the extent to which livestock operations will have to report manure-related emissions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) regulation, and the Emergency Planning Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA). In 2008, EPA provided a broad exemption of all livestock operations from reporting requirements. However, last April, a federal appeals court ended EPA’s exemption for reporting of livestock air emissions under CERCLA/EPCRA, following legal challenges made by activist groups.

EPA sought and was granted additional time from the court to delay the effective compliance date so that the agency could develop materials to help farmers understand their obligations. In late October, the EPA filed a motion requesting that the stay remain in place until January 2018. The D.C. Court of Appeals should issue its mandate by Jan. 22, which may trigger reporting for many dairy producers.

EPA estimates that a single dairy cow emits 0.07 pounds of ammonia per day. Given that the ammonia threshold is 100 pounds per day, NMPF estimates that it will take approximately 1,428 cows to trigger reporting to the National Response Center. EPA has said that no one is obligated to use the 0.07 emission factor, and instead says farmers “may establish estimated quantities of releases by relying on: past release data, engineering estimates, your knowledge of the facility’s operations and release history, or your best professional judgment.”

Once the mandate is issued, if a farm has more than 1,428 cows, operators should consider reporting to the National Response Center via email within 24 hours of understanding the reporting obligation. Dairy operators must identify the reportable release as an “initial continuous release notification,” then submit an initial written notification to the EPA Regional Office within 30 days, and one year later submit an additional follow-up written notification to the EPA Regional Office.

For farms with fewer than 1,428 cows, NMPF suggests calculating emissions on paper, signing and dating it in front of a notary, and keeping it on file to defend against activists who may try to initiate litigation against livestock operations. NMPF staff are prepared to assist dairy operators with compliance efforts if the emissions reporting requirement is implemented in the coming weeks.  Contact Clay Detlefsen for more information.

Further, farm owners and operators in compliance with their Animal Feeding Operation Air Compliance Agreement are not expected to report air releases of hazardous substances from animal wastes under CERCLA and EPCRA. Per that agreement, participants must report air releases of hazardous substances equal to or exceeding the hazardous substances’ reportable quantities under CERCLA only when EPA completes the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study.

NMPF continues to work with other animal agriculture organizations, EPA and members of Congress to find a long-term solution that will preclude the need to file air emission reports stemming from the natural decomposition of manure.

The 2017 edition of NMPF’s Dairy Data Highlights is now available to order.

The Dairy Data Highlights booklet is an extensive collection of tables and graphs that provides national and state data on all aspects of milk production, federal milk marketing orders, sales of milk and dairy products, farm and retail prices, and dairy product production, as well as dairy export and import information through 2016. It has been published annually by NMPF for more than 60 years.

Copies of the current Dairy Data Highlights are available at the following rates:

NMPF member cooperatives or associate members:
Fewer than 10 copies: $7.50/booklet
Orders larger than 10: $5.00/booklet.

Non-members:
Fewer than 10 copies: $10/booklet
Orders larger than 10: $7.50/booklet.

To purchase copies, complete an order form and mail it back to NMPF with payment. We accept checks or money orders. Checks should be made payable to the National Milk Producers Federation. Booklets will be mailed upon receipt of payment. The booklet is not available electronically.

NMPF is now accepting applications for its National Dairy Leadership Scholarship Program for academic year 2018-2019. Applications must be received no later than Friday, April 6, 2018.

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 greater U.S. dairy industry.

Graduate students pursuing research of direct benefit to milk marketing cooperatives and dairy producers are encouraged to apply (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 late Cass-Clay Creamery Board Chairman Murray Hintz, who was instrumental in establishing NMPF’s scholarship program.

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.

The National Dairy FARM Program, in conjunction with Southeast Milk Inc., Merck Animal Health and the University of Florida, hosted four dairy stewardship meetings and training sessions in three southern states from Dec. 11-15. The meetings helped emphasize the importance of implementing the FARM program’s Version 3.0 protocols, which became official at the start of 2017.

Owners and managers within Southeast Milk’s membership attended the trainings (pictured right), held in Louisiana, Georgia and Florida. During each one-day training courses, facilitators addressed potential vulnerabilities on the farm, discussed creating a culture of proper cow care, and shared resources for training on-farm employees.

These sessions are the foundation of a larger initiative developed by Southeast Milk to foster a culture of continuous improvement throughout the Florida dairy farm community, in light of customer and consumer expectations about animal care.

NMPF expressed support this month for the Maryland Department of Environment’s regulation to establish a water quality trading program, one that could serve as model for how other states provide opportunities for dairy farmers to benefit from the management of nutrients.

In its comments, NMPF endorsed the nutrient removal technologies that will be eligible to participate in the program – an issue the organization raised several times over the years as Maryland officials worked on the issue. NMPF also requested that trading not be limited in terms of time, and that a trading system with a duration of 10 or more years is needed to make the economics of nutrient removal technologies work. Otherwise, interest in technology-based nutrient removal solutions will not materialize. NMPF believes nutrient removal technologies can play an important role in the MDE’s trading program.

Unfortunately, Maryland’s plan to reallocate $10 million from the Bay Restoration Fund (BRF) to water quality trading for nutrient credit purchases did not come to fruition. Had the proposal been approved, it would have created enormous interest in the nutrient trading program. NMPF was also disappointed that piloting interstate trades within the Chesapeake Bay watershed suffered a similar fate. Regardless, NMPF commended both the MDE and the Maryland Department of Agriculture for creating the program and the rule. NMPF will continue to support Maryland effort to establish a workable water quality trading program.