ARLINGTON, VA – “We commend the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for releasing recommendations on the voluntary labeling of food made from genetically engineered foods. Once again, FDA has confirmed the safety of these products.

“Furthermore, we are heartened by FDA’s rejection of a petition seeking mandatory labeling of foods made with genetically modified ingredients. FDA’s rejection of the petition is a strong reaffirmation of the sound science policy underlying FDA’s approval process. Only products found to be safe for human or animal use should be approved. And if they are approved as safe, there is no basis for mandatory labeling.”

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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 more than 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. For more on NMPF’s activities, visit our website at www.nmpf.org.

ARLINGTON, VA – Dairy farmers only have a few more days to go to their county Farm Service Agency office to sign up for USDA’s Margin Protection Program (MPP) for 2016, the National Milk Producers Federation said today.

Jim Mulhern, President and CEO of NMPF, reminded farmers Tuesday that they have through Friday, Nov. 20, to obtain or adjust their coverage under the MPP, which provides dairy producers protection from a sharp downturn in milk prices, a steep rise in feed costs, or a combination of the two.

Nearly 25,000 dairy operations – about 55 percent of the total number of farms in the country – obtained coverage through USDA in the calendar year 2015, the first year of the MPP. Those farms’ combined production history represents approximately 170 billion pounds of milk, or 80 percent of the U.S. milk supply. Of the farms currently enrolled in the MPP for 2015, more than half chose to purchase MPP coverage above the basic, $4 margin level.

Mulhern noted that, like any insurance product, the MPP was not designed to make payouts every year. So far in 2015, the MPP has issued payments in each of the four, two-month coverage periods for those who elected to insure their margins at the maximum $8 margin level, but the payments did not cover program premiums. Producers who purchased coverage at lower levels have not received any payments.

“NMPF worked with dairy farmers across the country, and with Congress and the USDA, to design a safety net program to protect against catastrophic declines in the national average dairy farm margin,” Mulhern said.

Margins this year have been disappointing, but not the disasters we saw in 2009 and 2012, and the MPP’s payouts reflect that.” He noted that the previous dairy safety net, the Milk Income Loss Contract program, would not have triggered any payments in 2015.  

Those 25,000 farms that enrolled in 2015 will need either to pay a $100 administrative fee for basic coverage at the $4 margin level in 2016, or pay additional premiums on a sliding scale for a greater degree of MPP coverage. 

“Dairy futures currently indicate that margins in the first part of 2016 will be better than this year, but so much depends on things we can’t precisely predict, from the weather, to the growth of the global economy, to demand for both dairy products and livestock feed,” said Mulhern. “That’s why it’s important farmers look at their individual margin needs to make a decision on their program coverage level for 2016.”

NMPF has a variety of tools on its Future for Dairy website (www.futurefordairy.com) to help farmers make their sign-up decisions. Included is a downloadable calculator that allows producers to plug in their own numbers and quickly see the program’s protection impact on their farm.

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The National Milk Producers Federation, 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 more than 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. Visit www.nmpf.org for more information.

ARLINGTON, VA – Ryan Bennett has been promoted to Senior Director of Industry & Environmental Affairs for the National Milk Producers Federation. In this position, Bennett will focus on two critical areas of growing interest to NMPF members: animal care and environmental issues.

Bennett, formerly Director of Government Relations, will work with Vice President of Animal Care Emily Meredith to enhance and expand NMPF’s FARM Program. In this capacity, he will focus extensively on farm and processor engagement, including evaluator training, participant outreach, managing the new and expanded database, and developing FARM program materials.

On the environmental side, Bennett will continue to strengthen NMPF’s engagement and stakeholder support. He will work with Clay Detlefsen, Senior Vice President of Regulatory & Environmental Affairs for NMPF, to advance the organization’s work with the newly created Newtrient LLC, addressing on-farm environmental issues related to manure management.

“Ryan’s demonstrated ability and interest in these areas will provide benefits across the organization,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “I’m excited to see what he’ll accomplish in this positon.”

Bennett joined the NMPF staff on the government relations team in 2012. For the past three years, he has worked on issues including the 2014 farm bill, transportation legislation, taxes and environmental policy.

Bennett grew up in Maryland, where his family raised beef cattle. He graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in agricultural communications, and is working toward a master’s there in agribusiness.

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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 more than 32,000 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 National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) has released an updated version of its Milk and Dairy Beef Drug Residue Prevention Manual – one of the key components of the National Dairy FARM ProgramTM. In order to share the information widely with dairy farmers, the manual can be accessed for free on the FARM program website. This year’s manual includes additional information that focuses on ways the dairy industry can proactively engage in antimicrobial stewardship efforts.

The Milk and Dairy Beef Drug Residue Prevention Manual offers a concise review of appropriate antibiotic use in dairy animals, and can also be used as an educational tool for farm managers as they develop their best management practices necessary to avoid milk and meat residues.

“We know that there is increased attention to the use of medicines in livestock, and in order to maintain the ability to use those products to treat sick animals, we have to demonstrate that we are using them judiciously,” said Jim Mulhern, President and CEO of NMPF. “This newly revised manual represents the ongoing commitment dairy farmers have to using antibiotics responsibly and prudently.”

Additions to the 2016 version include a section on avoiding potential residue violations from extra-label drug use in an unapproved class of cattle, cephalosporin extra-label use prohibitions, as well as an updated drug and test kit list. The 2016 manual also includes a certificate of participation that can be signed by a producer and his/her veterinarian to demonstrate their commitment to the proper use of antibiotics.

The new manual is being released at the beginning of Get Smart About Antibiotics week, an event sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to emphasize the importance of appropriate antibiotic prescribing and use, for humans as well as livestock.

The dairy industry is committed to producing safe, abundant, and affordable milk and dairy beef of the highest quality, Mulhern said. Healthy animals help make for safe food, and disease prevention is the key to keeping cows healthy.

The National Dairy FARM Program was created by NMPF to demonstrate and verify that U.S. milk producers are committed to providing the highest levels of quality assurance including animal care, residue prevention, and other on-farm practices. For more information on the FARM Program, visit www.nationaldairyfarm.com.

The Residue Avoidance manual was sponsored by Charm Sciences, IDEXX, Elanco, Zoetis and Boehringer Ingleheim. No check-off funds were used in the development and distribution of this manual.

For more information on the National Dairy FARM Program, contact Emily Meredith at (703) 243- 6111 or log on to www.nationaldairyfarm.com.

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The National Milk Producers Federation, 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 30 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.

Dr. Beth Briczinski, NMPF’s vice president for dairy foods and nutrition, was recently named a 2015 Outstanding Recent Alumna by the College of Agricultural Sciences at Pennsylvania State University.

The Outstanding Alumna award recognizes alumni who have graduated in the past 10 years and provides opportunities for recipients to interact with the college’s faculty, students and other alumni.

“We’re thrilled that Beth is being recognized for her dedication to the food and dairy industries,” said President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “This award further solidifies her vital role in ensuring consumer confidence in the country’s milk supply.”

Briczinski received her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at Penn State, all in food science. Since becoming an NMPF employee, she has continued her connection with Penn State by guest-lecturing at the undergraduate course on dairy foods.

Cooperatives Working Together assisted member cooperatives in getting 32 contracts to sell 4.252 million pounds of dairy products to customers in 11 countries in October. The will be shipped from October 2015 through April 2016.

These sales contracts bring the year-to-date 2015 totals through October to 51.4 million pounds of cheese, 25.7 million pounds of butter, and 35.1 million pounds of whole milk powder. In total, CWT assisted transactions will move the equivalent of 1.308 billion pounds of milk on a milkfat basis to customers in 35 countries on five continents. These totals are adjusted for contract cancellations.

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

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered in early October a nationwide halt of the implementation of the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) Final Rule.

The nationwide stay was granted after a 2-1 vote. The court took issue with both the content of the rule and the lack of notice and comment for significant changes that were added in the final version. Due to both procedural and merits claims, the court ordered the Clean Water Rule stayed, nationwide, pending further order of the court.

“This ruling provides greater certainty for dairy farmers across the country, who up until today faced conflicting sets of new water regulations, depending on which state they are in,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern.

About a month later, on Nov. 3, the Senate failed to pass legislation that would have required the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw the current final rules and rewrite them. The next day, using a rare legislative method that allows members to void federal rules by a majority vote, the Senate voted to simply disapprove the regulations.

These developments are part of a years-long endeavor for NMPF. In November 2014, NMPF submitted comments on the proposed rule to the EPA and Corps of Engineers outlining its concerns with the lack of clarity and certainty for dairy farmers should the rule proceed. The final rule left many of these concerns unresolved. The majority opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit brought forth many of the same concerns, and reaffirmed NMPF’s request to EPA and Corps of Engineers on Aug. 31  to suspend enforcement of the WOTUS regulation nationwide.

While NMPF has serious concerns about the WOTUS rule, Mulhern stressed that Federation’s members remain committed to protecting U.S. waterways through both voluntary efforts and compliance with the Clean Water Act.

“Clean water is central to the production of milk and other dairy products,” he said. “The dairy industry remains committed to working with the EPA and Corps of Engineers to find effective ways to achieve this important goal.”

Milkfat made a splash last month, when several new studies revealed that saturated fats are healthier than previously thought.

In the last year, the reputation of full-fat foods has gotten a facelift, with Americans increasingly consuming more of them, according to a study by the Credit Suisse Research Institute. Butter sales, for example, climbed 6 percent in the first three months of 2015, according to the study.

“Saturated fat has not been a driver of obesity: fat does not make you fat,” said researchers.

At the beginning of the month, dairy made the front page of The Washington Post when scientists said whole milk is not a strong contributing factor to heart disease – a notion championed by the federal government through its dietary guidelines for years. In fact, the article stated, “people who consumed more milk fat had lower incidence of heart disease.”

At the end of October, another study published in the Journal of Nutrition revealed yet more exciting news for milk drinkers: “Total and especially full-fat dairy food intakes are inversely and independently associated with metabolic syndrome in middle-aged and older adults,” the report said. Simply put: Those who consume full-fat dairy products are less likely to be afflicted with the related risk factors that predict heart disease and diabetes.

Studies like these come at a crucial time for the dairy industry. This year, the federal dietary guidelines are due for their five-year update.

“We’re entering a new era of dairy consumption,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “We’ve long believed in that milkfat need not be demonized by health researchers. I’m glad to see science – and hopefully the government – catching up with us.”

NMPF has advocated on several occasions for the increased consumption of milk, including bringing more of it to school cafeterias and touting its nutritional quality through the REAL® Seal.

While the United States has reduced support mechanisms for dairy farmers in recent years, a wide range of foreign dairy subsidies remain, limiting the U.S. industry’s ability to sell more of its products overseas, NMPF Senior Vice President Jaime Castaneda told the House Agriculture Committee.

Testifying October 21, Castaneda said these foreign dairy support programs impede an industry that has gone from exporting less than $1 billion in dairy products in 2000 to $7.1 billion last year.

“Trade agreements have helped make this possible by lowering and removing barriers to our exports,” said Jaime Castaneda, NMPF’s senior vice president. “However, they have done little to constrain the use of domestic supports in the dairy sector or agriculture as a whole.”

Foreign dairy subsidies take different forms, ranging from direct aid, to import protections and regulatory measures designed to give foreign dairy producers an advantage over U.S. competitors.

According to Castaneda, the 28-nation European Union is the biggest provider of direct dairy support, offering cash payments, storage subsidies, price supports and, most recently, emergency aid to producers to counter low prices. In addition, the EU is attempting to limit dairy imports further by blocking the use of commonly used product names outside prescribed areas.

Other major countries providing direct support to their dairy farmers include Canada, India, New Zealand, and Japan, Castaneda said.

The European Union, by using free trade agreements to limit the use of common cheese names by non-EU producers, is bullying its trading partners into violating international trade rules, NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council told U.S. trade officials.

In comments filed October 28 with the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the two groups said the European Union is pursuing an increasingly aggressive strategy to restrict the use of cheese names like feta and parmesan.

“This is intended to award EU companies with the sole right to use many terms that have already entered into wide-spread common usage around the world,” they said. “We view the EU’s efforts as bullying its trading partners into violating their World Trade Organization commitments and, where those countries have FTAs with the U.S., their commitments under those agreements, as well.”

The comments detailed more than a dozen examples in which the European Union has or is attempting to restrict the use of generic cheese names through FTAs or other negotiated trade agreements.

Also in their comments on the National Trade Estimate Report, NMPF and USDEC cited numerous other examples of foreign countries using tariff and nontariff barriers to limit U.S. dairy exports. The countries involved include Canada, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Israel, Japan and New Zealand. 

The clock continues to tick on the potential imposition of retaliatory tariffs in response to the World Trade Organization’s finding that parts of the U.S. country-of-origin labeling law violate international trade rules. 

For that reason, NMPF joined with the U.S. Dairy Export Council and the International Dairy Foods Association in urging Congress to solve the dispute as soon as possible to head off damaging new tariffs on U.S. dairy exports. “(We) urge the Senate to pass legislation to bring the U.S. into compliance with its WTO obligations without further delay in order to head off this significant threat to U.S. dairy exports,” the groups said.

Last spring, the WTO ruled against the U.S. COOL program, saying that Canada and Mexico could retaliate against U.S. exports in response. American dairy products have been on Canada’s target list for retaliatory tariffs resulting from the ruling.

“Retaliation against dairy products would come at a particularly challenging time for our industry, given the currently depressed global dairy market…” NMPF, USDEC and IDFA said. “Multiple cooperatives have already been faced at times this year with oversupplies of milk, causing them to dispose of excess milk at a loss. Retaliatory tariffs would back up exports further onto the U.S. market during this time of overly abundant milk supplies.”

Any congressional solution, the groups added, must satisfy Canada and Mexico because those two countries would retain their right to retaliate against the United States until a lengthy WTO arbitration process is concluded. “U.S. dairy producers and processors cannot risk getting mired down in that drawn-out process,” they said. The three groups asked the Senate to work together “to put in place an outcome that Canada and Mexico agree resolves this issue.”

The Obama administration released the much-anticipated full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement in early November. It includes thousands of tariff lines, hundreds of new rules, new chapters on Sanitary & Phytosanitary requirements, and a whole new chapter on protecting common food names. In addition, there are several side letters with exemptions, clarifications and concessions.

NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council are carefully reviewing the dairy provisions, which are extremely important since nearly 14 percent of all U.S. milk production is now exported. “Until the details have been fully assessed, we are unable to determine the full impact of the agreement on the dairy industry and whether or not we recommend that members of Congress support it,” they said.

NMPF and USDEC expressed appreciation to U.S. trade negotiators for their work on the long-pending, 12-nation agreement. They also thanked the House and Senate members who joined the dairy industry in supporting a balanced outcome to the agreement’s dairy provisions.