Last Chance to Register for NMPF Annual Meeting

Meeting registrations and hotel reservations for the joint 2012 annual meeting of NMPF, the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board (NDB), and the United Dairy Industry Association (UDIA) must be submitted by today, October 5th. After today, reservations will be confirmed on a space and rate available basis. Attendees are encouraged to visit www.dairyevents.com to make their reservations.

The meeting will take place October 29 – 31 at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel in Lake Buena Vista, FL. Dairy producers and industry leaders from across the United States will discuss ways to help “Secure Dairy’s Future” and learn more about how national dairy policy and promotion organizations are working together for the benefit of all producers.

At the meeting, NMPF Chairman Randy Mooney will join President and CEO Jerry Kozak to share updates on 2012 federal dairy policy and programs, as well as plans for 2013 and beyond. The producer leaders of NDB, UDIA, and Dairy Management Inc. (which is funded through NDB and UDIA) will share results, goals, and strategies about how today’s dairy checkoff is helping protect and grow dairy sales.

The two-day general session will be hosted by Mike Adams, host of “Agri-Talk” radio, which is billed as the “Voice of Rural America.” Other meeting speakers include:

• Dick Vitale, college basketball analyst with ABC Sports and ESPN, will share insights about tackling life’s challenges head-on through lessons learned from sports – and how it can apply to business situations and daily life – at Tuesday’s opening luncheon.
• Stu Rothenberg, editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report and columnist with Roll Call, will offer perspective on the November elections and answer questions about specific U.S. House, Senate, and gubernatorial races.
• Patrick Doyle, president and CEO of Domino’s Pizza, will share results of the chain’s sales-building partnership with the dairy checkoff and preview plans to help grow dairy sales.
• Doug Lipp, an internationally acclaimed expert on customer service and leadership, will share insights learned from his years of training and motivating employees through his work at Walt Disney University and Disneyland.

Following the General Session on October 31, organizers will hold an awards luncheon to honor dairy producer and industry leaders whose efforts have led to a better future for dairy producers. The meeting will conclude with a banquet featuring a performance by Laura Bell Bundy, a country artist and actress who has appeared in various film and television roles.

For more details about the meeting, please visit www.nmpf.org/nmpf-joint-annual-meeting.

Alliance Welcomes NMPF Representative to Executive Committee

The Animal Agriculture Alliance welcomed Dr. Jamie Jonker to serve on its Executive Committee on behalf of NMPF. NMPF has been a longstanding member of the Alliance and Jonker has served on the Alliance’s Board of Directors for the past six years. The Alliance’s Executive Committee consists of nine representatives from across the animal agriculture sectors.

“We appreciate Dr. Jonker’s service and welcome this opportunity to ensure the dairy industry is well represented in the Alliance’s leadership,” Alliance President and CEO Kay Johnson Smith said.

NMPF’s representation will help the Alliance broaden its reach within the dairy community. Dr. Robert Hagevoort, Extension Dairy Specialist at New Mexico State University, also serves on the Alliance’s Board on behalf of the dairy industry.

 

NMPF Encourages Strong U.S. Focus on Opening Canadian Dairy Market

NMPF testified at a hearing last month regarding the addition of Canada to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. At the hearing, held by the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), NMPF said that the exclusion of dairy from the U.S.-Canada portion of the North American Free Trade Agreement was a major missed opportunity and needs be rectified now through the TPP process. In addition to opening access to the Canadian market by elimination of its dairy tariffs, NMPF also stressed the importance of ensuring that non-tariff barriers do not thwart U.S. access, as had been seen in the past.

A similar message was delivered by 50 members of the House of Representatives in a letter sent to USTR last month with the same core messages. That letter underscored how vital it is for USTR to aggressively pursue an opening of the Canadian dairy and poultry markets, now that Canada will be actively participating in its first TPP round in December. The letter was instigated by Reps. Reid Ribble and Bill Owens, who were joined by all six Dairy Farmer Caucus Co-Chairs and many other members of Congress.

 

CWT has Biggest Month in September

Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) had its busiest-ever month when measured by the volume of products for which it awarded bonuses in September. While the 78 bids CWT received weren’t as high as in previous months, the volume of cheese exported through the CWT export assistance program reached a record 16.784 million pounds. A total of 11 butter bids accepted added 1.631 million pounds to the total product exports assisted in September, which all together was the equivalent of 190.5 million pounds of milk moved offshore.

For the first nine months of 2012, CWT assisted member cooperatives in selling 95.9 million pounds of cheese and 58.3 million pounds of butter to 34 countries in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, as well as Central and South America. In total, the product was the equivalent of 2.2 billion pounds of milk. That amounts to 70% of the increase in milk production so far in2012 .

Clearly, CWT’s efforts are a significant factor in the positive movement in commodity prices in recent months.

 

Members of the House and Senate left Washington last month without completing work on the 2012 Farm Bill, leaving unresolved the fate of a new safety net for dairy farmers. Although Congress is expected to return to Capitol Hill after the Nov. 6th elections to tackle a number of old business items, NMPF continues to raise concerns about the ramifications of Congress’s inaction on farm policy.

“Dairy is among the first sectors in agriculture to feel the impact of Congress’s inability to reach accord on most anything, including a new Farm Bill,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “Had the House leadership brought the bipartisan farm bill to the floor, I believe we could have passed a bill containing the Dairy Security Act. Instead, we are in uncharted waters, and one of our life rafts has disappeared.”

Given that feed prices continue to drive margins below sustainable levels for many producers, NMPF and its members must continue to push Congress to pass the Dairy Security Act, which instead of focusing simply on milk prices, takes into account the margin between farm-level milk prices and feed costs, he said.

“We strongly encourage our dairy farmer members to visit with their members of Congress during the pre-election recess to determine a path forward for the 2012 Farm Bill soon after the elections,” Kozak said. “We need a full, five-year bill to be passed in the House, sent to a conference committee, and approved before the end of the year.”

Recent news stories have speculated on what might happen to farm prices – and ultimately, retail prices and dairy demand – if a new farm bill isn’t passed by the end of the year, and the dairy price support program reverts back to 75% of parity levels, as specified in permanent farm law. Kozak said in his recent monthly column that the threat of marketplace disruptions may be what it takes for Congress to feel the urgency to act on a new bill.

Meanwhile, a new analysis issued last month by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) points out the advantages of the margin insurance and market stabilization-based approach to reforming dairy policy.

The CRS report was released Sept. 18th in order to help members of Congress and their staffs better understand the details of current dairy policy, and potential changes to those programs. More importantly, the CRS report provides an impartial view of the specific programs contained in the Dairy Security Act of the pending Farm Bill.

Kozak said that the CRS report “should greatly clarify and simplify the decision-making process on Capitol Hill. It dispels the scare-mongering distortions offered by opponents of the Dairy Security Act, highlights the benefits of a new, voluntary approach to providing a safety net to farmers, and reinforces the need to include the Dairy Security Act in a new farm bill.”

In reviewing other empirical studies of the provisions of the Dairy Security Act, CRS highlighted several major improvements compared to current programs:

• The combination of the margin insurance and market stabilization programs “appears to substantially mitigate the dairy operating margin volatility.”
• The DSA “will provide a stronger safety net in extremely low margin events.”
• An analysis by agricultural economist Mark Stephenson found that net milk exports actually expand under the DSA.

Virginia Dairy Farmer Speaks in Senate about Need to Pass New Farm Bill

 

Alliance Celebrates 25th Anniversary, Continues to Unite Industry

 

Use Science in Regulating Antibiotics, Agriculture Coalition Says

 

Americans Commemorate National Ice Cream Month

 

Government Relations Staff Member Departs as New One Welcomed

 

 

In a year when the country has suffered the worst drought in decades, you would think the added public attention to the importance of securing our nation’s food production would make it easier to adopt a Farm Bill. Of course, you’d be wrong.

As September ended, Congress failed to build on the legislative momentum from the spring and summer, when the 2012 Farm Bill passed the Senate Agriculture Committee, then the full Senate, then the House Agriculture Committee….and then, stalled out.

Even in the face of additional pressure from farm groups, food groups, and key Republicans in the House and Senate, the House leadership finally acknowledged late last month that it didn’t have any intention of bringing the House farm bill to a vote. This, despite the fact that it passed the Ag Committee by a three-to-one margin last month, and that many current programs expired Sept. 30th.

Any major piece of legislation will have its critics as well as supporters, and the Farm Bill is no exception. But the response to any concerns should have been to bring it to a vote before the full House of Representatives, so amendments could be debated and the bill could progress. That’s what happened in the Senate, which is usually the chamber in Congress noted for a tortuously slow deliberative process. This time, though, it’s the House that has failed to lead. Doing nothing aptly illustrates the reason why many voters hold Congress in such low esteem.

So where does that leave dairy policy? In uncharted waters, at best. The MILC program expired Sept. 30. Even though some lawmakers wanted to help dairy farmers by passing a short-term extension of the program, our concern at NMPF is that any extension, even if only for a few months, takes the pressure off of Congress to act on a new bill. The risk of delaying a day of reckoning simply isn’t worth the modest reward of one more MILC payment.

The other safety net programs intended to help farmers – the Dairy Product Price Support and Dairy Export Incentive programs – don’t expire till the end of December. And here’s where it gets interesting. While neither has been active since 2009, the wrinkle concerning the price support program is that come January 1st, 2013, the support level reverts back to parity pricing. Specifically, under permanent law governing USDA, the minimum price of milk becomes 75% of whatever the parity level is come January. We calculate that 75% of August’s parity price is $39 per hundredweight. This would result in support prices of $3.65/lb. for butter, $2.79/lb. for powder, and $4/lb. for cheese.

Those who believe Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack would never permit the Commodity Credit Corporation to purchase products at these levels shouldn’t pin their hopes on his failure to act. First, he’s bound by law to do so. Second, he believes a new farm bill is a necessity – and if the possibility of dramatic price spikes are a short-term incentive to getting the job done, then so be it. As we’ve found in recent years, it takes a crisis in order for policy makers to act. A near-quadrupling of cheese support prices may be the crisis we shouldn’t let go to waste.

While some may believe that the dairy title of the Farm Bill remains a sticking point, I also want to point to why the latest report from the Congressional Research Service – a non-partisan “think-tank” office providing detailed analysis to Congress of various policy options – affirms that the Dairy Security Act is the best choice for farm policy.

In a report released September 18, the CRS’s review of dairy policy noted that the DSA’s combination of margin insurance and market stabilization “appears to substantially mitigate the dairy operating margin volatility”; provides “a stronger safety net in extremely low margin events”; and may help “net milk exports actually expand.”

In a crucial rebuke to those who continue to cry that market stabilization is some Canadian-style quota system, the CRS report said that the market stabilization program, while “referred to as a supply management program, is perhaps more accurately described as a production disincentive program, since there are no production limits or quotas, and the dairy operator may continue to run his operation at any production level.”

The report also reiterates a key fact about the effort to strip out the market stabilization program, as Agriculture Committee members Reps. Bob Goodlatte and David Scott attempted to do this summer. CRS noted that under the Goodlatte-Scott method, “no production growth is permitted,” and insurance coverage is limited to only 80% of a farm’s production – compared to 90% under the Dairy Security Act.

It’s a point worth repeating: this alternative guts the insurance protection of the dairy title by putting more risk and cost onto the backs of farmers. It reduces the amount of historic production they can insure, and eliminates the ability to insure new milk production during the lifespan of the farm bill. Since those who support this alternative share my concern about the growth of the U.S. dairy sector, let’s be frank that it’s a real, de facto quota system that would severely hamper the ability of our industry to be the healthy, growing, future-oriented business that we want.

We expect Congress to address the farm bill in a lame duck session after the November elections. The drought of leadership, and action, must end.

Key Farm Programs Among First To End

ARLINGTON, VA – Dairy farmers have lost a safety net because the 2008 farm bill expired Sunday and Congress has yet to pass a new Farm Bill, according to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), which said today that farmers need to continue to voice their dissatisfaction with the lack of action in Washington on farm policy.

Members of the House left Washington last month without completing work on the 2012 Farm Bill. Although Congress is expected to return to Capitol Hill after the November elections, the status of many farm and food programs is in limbo until then, along with the rest of the pending farm bill that contains a new and better safety net for dairy farmers.

“Dairy is among the first sectors in agriculture to feel the impact of Congress’s inability to reach accord on most anything, including a new Farm Bill,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “Had the House leadership brought the bipartisan farm bill to the floor, I believe we could have passed a bill containing the Dairy Security Act. Instead, we are in uncharted waters, and one of our life rafts has disappeared.”

Dairy farmers continue to suffer from high feed costs, and the other program intended to serve as a safety net – the dairy product price support program – was created years before feed costs started to escalate, Kozak said.

That’s why NMPF has been urging Congress to pass the Dairy Security Act, which instead of focusing simply on milk prices, takes into account the margin between farm-level milk prices and feed costs.

“We strongly encourage our dairy farmer members to visit with their members of Congress during the pre-election recess to determine a path forward for the 2012 Farm Bill soon after the elections,” Kozak said. “We need a full, five-year bill to be passed in the House, sent to a conference committee, and approved before the end of the year.”

 

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 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.