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Senate Farm Bill Conservation Title Praised by Agricultural Stakeholders

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Prior to completing work on the Senate Agriculture Committee’s Farm Bill last month, committee staff provided a preview of certain draft titles. NMPF had the opportunity to see an outline of the key aspects of Title II, the conservation title. For the most part, the elements were similar to those included in the failed Super Committee package, which has earned praise from nearly all stakeholders representing agricultural and conservation organizations. Altogether, the legislation would remove $6 billion from the conservation title, while consolidating and simplifying a number of the programs. These provisions are featured in the bill that was ultimately approved by the committee last Thursday.

For dairy farmers, the major priority in the conservation title is to continue a strong Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), while maintaining the carve-out for livestock at 60 percent. NMPF was also pleased to see additional attention to haying and grazing.

The conservation title would set up four new provisions of the title: Working Lands, Easements, Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Partnerships. Here is a brief synopsis of each provision:

Working Lands

Three existing programs would be consolidated into this section, which would include EQIP, Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). WHIP would be folded into EQIP since both programs can be duplicative in their efforts on the farm. WHIP would receive a carve-out of 5 percent of the funding. Again, EQIP would maintain the 60 percent funding carve out for livestock – a major victory for dairy farmers. The CSP program would be simplified and administered on more of a science-based process.

Easements

This section would consolidate the Farmland Protection Program (FRP), Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) and the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) into one program, with two program options dealing with agriculture lands and wetlands. An important element of this section is extra attention to haying and grazing, including making permanent a grazing pilot program from the 2008 farm bill. Also, the 2008 farm bill prohibited enrollment of land if ownership had changed during the previous seven years. This has now been changed to two years.

CRP

 

CWT-Assisted Exports Approach 90 Million Pounds in 2012

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In April, Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) accepted 55 requests for export assistance from member cooperatives accounting for nine million pounds of Cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese, and 7.5 million pounds of butter. This brought the totals for the first four months of 2012 to 46.9 million pounds of cheese, and 40.8 million pounds of butter. That is the equivalent of 1.322 billion pounds of milk on a milkfat basis, or the annual production of nearly 63,000 cows.

CWT also decided last month to expand the products for which it will consider providing export assistance. Whole milk powder (WMP) and anhydrous milk fat (AMF) bids will be considered moving forward. As with butter and cheese, neither Mexico nor Canada is eligible as a destination for the two new product categories.

As with all the requests for assistance that CWT receives from member cooperatives, a thorough analysis of the WMP and AMF bids submitted will be done, based on market fundamentals. If the level of assistance requested is economically justified, CWT will accept the bid. If not, CWT makes a counter offer for the member cooperative to either accept or decline. Of the 397 requests for assistance submitted, 286 were accepted by CWT, either initially, or after counter offers from member cooperatives.

 

Federal Court Upholds Milk Regulatory Equity Act

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On April 13, the D.C. Court of Appeals issued its decision upholding the Milk Regulatory Equity Act, supported by NMPF and passed by Congress in 2005 to provide for more consistent regulation of milk handlers in the Southwestern United States. Among other things, the law put a size limit on the producer-handler exemption in the Arizona Federal Milk Marketing Order.

The owners of one large producer-handler took the government to court over this change, arguing that the law was an illegal attack on his business alone, and that he was denied due process and equal protection of the law. In its decision, the Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that the government was well within its rights, based on settled constitutional law, to bring the producer-handler under the same regulation faced by other, competing handlers. According to that decision, such producer-handlers “have no liberty or property interest in the regulatory status quo.” That is, they don’t own the old regulation or have any right to compensation or remedy for its amendment.

 

CFTC Approves Dodd-Frank Rules That Limit Burden on Cooperatives and Farmers

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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved two final rules on April 18 that will help farmers, cooperative, handlers, grain elevators, and other agricultural businesses avoid unintended regulation under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, which has been a priority for NMPF during the past two years.

The first of these rules defines “Commodity Options” subject to regulation by the Commission. The Commission excluded most of the ancillary “trade options” (including penalties, buyouts, etc.) in contracts whose main purpose is not the option, but to buy and sell physical commodities. This exclusion was in response to comments – including those from NMPF – noting that excessive regulation of trade options in commercial contracts would paralyze American business, and urging CFTC to define an effective exclusion.

The second rule defined “swap dealers.” Many farmer cooperatives, grain elevators, and handlers provide farmers effective specialized risk management services. Initial versions of this rule would have defined such services as “swap dealing,” subjecting the service provider to heavy reporting requirement and limits on their business, driving many of them out of the risk management business, and making effective risk management difficult or impossible for many farmers to find. The final rule 1) provides an exception for bona fide hedging of physical commodity risk, 2) exempts affiliate transactions such as cooperative-member dealing, and 3) provides an additional de minimis exemption for other commodity trading of up to $8 billion in transactions per year. This $8 billion exemption phases down to $3 billion per year, which will allow agricultural businesses to adjust to the new rules.

These rules are the culmination of two years of work by NMPF in making the Dodd-Frank rules manageable for farmers and their cooperatives. This began with ensuring that the original legislation provided for substantial end-user exemptions, and continued through a long series of CFTC notices and rules which NMPF has reviewed and commented upon. Many of these rules, as initially proposed, would have brought agricultural businesses under heavy regulatory burdens, imposed extreme record-keeping requirements, set unworkable position limits, and discouraged many current providers of farm risk management services from continuing in that business. NMPF, along with other agricultural commodity groups, submitted comments, attended meetings, and made a strong case for agriculture’s risk management needs. Ultimately, CFTC recognized these needs and provided for effective differentiation in the rules between speculation and commercial agricultural hedging.

 

Department of Labor Withdraws Controversial Child Labor Proposal for Farms

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Last week, the Department of Labor (DOL) withdrew its contentious proposed rule restricting the work that children could do on farms. In a statement issued by the DOL, it was made clear that the proposed rule would not be pursued for the duration of the Obama Administration.

NMPF was encouraged by the Department’s recognition that the path it was on with this proposal was an affront to millions of family members on farms and ranches across America. Many of them had objected to what the Labor Department was planning to do, and they voiced their concerns to the DOL, as well as to Congress. The withdrawal of the proposal “is a victory for common sense,” according to NMPF President and CEO Jerry Kozak.

The proposed child labor rule would have changed the definition of the “parental exemption,” changed the student learner exemption, and significantly redefined what practices would be acceptable for youth under the age of 16 to participate in. These changes drew objections from NMPF, along with other major agricultural organizations, because of the significant impact the change would have had on rural communities and families. Instead, the DOL says it will work with rural stakeholders to develop education programs to reduce accidents to young workers and promote safer agricultural working practices.

 

The Happy News About Mad Cows

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In its quest to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, the U.S. government has looked through a lot of hay, and found four…not needles, but cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. After taking upwards of one million neurological samples of brain tissue from America’s cattle supply in the past decade, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has confirmed a quartet of cases, the most recent of which was in California last month.

The good news on this is both short-term, and especially, long-term. In the short run, beef markets bounced around, but ultimately shrugged off the impact of the discovery. In the long run, the news is that the system of deterrents we have in place to prevent the introduction and spread of mad cow continues to work. Even with extensive testing, we’re not finding a significant number of infected cows. The firewalls are holding. The effectiveness of these firewalls also demonstrates why a teaspoon of proactivity is worth many pounds of late-to-the-party responses, if and when things hit the fan.

The best example of this is the significant effort made in the U.S. to prevent a British-style breakout of mad cow disease. Keep in mind that the disease started in England in the 1980s when sheep were rendered and added to cattle feed. The sheep disease scrapie apparently crossed between species, and began to infect cows, causing BSE. And when humans ate the neurological tissues of BSE-infected cows, they started contracting a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), an always-fatal neurological disorder that, in its normal form, strikes one in a million people.

So, starting in 1997, what regulators and industry did in America was to prevent the feeding of ruminant tissues to other ruminants. With NMPF’s strong backing, the USDA and FDA put a feed ban in place so that the potentially infectious materials in other mammals couldn’t be part of the diet of our beef and dairy animals. Eight years earlier, the U.S. had already banned the importation of ruminant animals and animal products from countries with cases of BSE; but the 1997 feed ban was crucial to proactively preventing an infectious disease from taking hold in the U.S.

The government also took two other crucial steps in 2004: first, it banned the inclusion of neurological tissues in the human food supply. Muscle cuts of meat don’t carry the infectious prions that cause BSE and CJD, only tissues like brains and spinal cords do. So, it was vital to protecting our food supply to keep those products out.

Second, the USDA also banned the processing of non-ambulatory, downer cows. Now, not all cows with BSE have been downers, and certainly the great majority of non-ambulatory cows are not infected with BSE. But because there is a theoretical correlation, NMPF endorsed the idea that to further shore up food safety, downers had to stay out of the meat supply.

The appearance of America’s first case of BSE in 2003 demonstrated both the need, and wisdom, of these approaches. That cow, a dairy animal discovered in Washington state, was born in Canada: a country that has had more cases of BSE than the U.S., likely because of tainted feed it imported from England. That imported animal had the typical form of BSE infection, identical to the hundreds of thousands of mad cows discovered in the U.K. in the 1980s and 1990s.

However, the three cases of BSE discovered in America since then: in Texas in 2005, in Alabama in 2006, and now this recent case in California – all have been infected with what’s called “atypical” BSE. While much is still unknown about prions and BSE, from all appearances, these three domestic animals all had BSE that occurred spontaneously, not because they ate infected feed. These may well be the bovine equivalents of the several hundred Americans who develop the traditional CJD disease each year.

However, there’s one other deterrence process where the U.S. has been a laggard: having a mandatory, national animal ID system. To its credit, our Canadian neighbors have a system that allows a traceback for cattle, like the one we imported that had BSE. In the dairy industry, we have internal record-keeping systems that allow for animal identification, which is why we know the history of the ten year-old cow found in Tulare, Calif. But that system is not mandatory. And there are gaps as a result.

In the case of the Texas cow found with BSE, the USDA was never able to fully trace its herd mates. The lack of a mandatory, national system is evidence that we need to remain proactive and keep pushing our legislators and regulators to move in that direction. Our good luck with mad cow disease isn’t just happenstance; it has happened because of the many steps, not all of them popular at the time, we have taken. But more is still needed.

 

National Milk Producers Federation Statement on Department of Labor Child Labor Announcement

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From Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF

ARLINGTON, VA – “Yesterday, the Department of Labor (DOL) withdrew its contentious proposed rule restricting the work that children could do on farms. In a statement issued by the DOL, it was made clear that the proposed rule would not be pursued ‘for the duration of the Obama Administration.’

“The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) is encouraged by the Department’s recognition that the path it was on with this proposal was an affront to millions of family members on farms and ranches across America. Many of them had objected to what the Labor Department was planning to do, and they voiced their concerns to the DOL, as well as to Congress. The withdrawal of the proposal is a victory for common sense.

“This proposed child labor rule would have changed the definition of the ‘parental exemption,’ changed the student learner exemption, and significantly redefined what practices would be acceptable for youth under the age of 16 to participate in. These changes drew objections from NMPF, along with all the other major agricultural organizations, because of the significant impact the change would have had on rural communities and families. Instead, the DOL says it will work with rural stakeholders to develop education programs to reduce accidents to young workers and promote safer agricultural working practices.”

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.

Senate Agriculture Committee Approves Dairy Policy Reforms in Farm Bill

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WASHINGTON, DC – The Senate Agriculture Committee today approved a farm bill draft that contains critically-needed improvements in dairy programs, according to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF). The bill passed by a vote of 16 to 5, and now will proceed to the full Senate for consideration.

The Senate legislation includes a new, voluntary margin protection program, endorsed by NMPF, to better safeguard farmers against disastrously low margins, such as those generated by the low milk prices and high feed costs that cost dairy farmers $20 billion in net worth between 2007 and 2009.

“The Senate has taken a huge step in the right direction by including the dairy reforms modeled after NMPF’s Foundation for the Future program,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “We commend Senators Stabenow and Roberts for their leadership and diligence in shepherding the farm bill past this point.”

Kozak said the dairy title contains a better safety net for farmers in the form of the Dairy Production Margin Protection Program, which offers them a basic level of coverage against low margins, as well as a supplemental insurance plan offering higher levels of protection jointly funded by government and farmers. Those who opt to enroll in the margin program will also be subject to the Market Stabilization program that asks them to reduce milk output when margins are poor.

The Committee approved two amendments to the dairy title of the farm bill: one, offered by Sens. Johanns (R-NE) and Casey (D-PA), that authorizes a review of the Market Stabilization program at the end of the five-year farm bill lifespan; and a second, offered by Sen. Gillibrand (D-NY), that extends the MILC program through June 2013, at a reduced rate, so there is a safety net in place while the USDA implements the new dairy margin insurance program. The bill was not amended in any way that diminishes the value of the margin protection or market stabilization elements, according to Kozak.

“We’re very appreciative that members of the Agriculture Committee have preserved the carefully-crafted economic and political compromises that went into the creation of Foundation for the Future. We look forward to working with the full Senate as it considers this legislation later this spring,” Kozak said.

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.

NMPF President Urges House Committee to Include Dairy Security Act in Farm Bill

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Kozak Tells Panel that Dairy Farmers Need Improved Safety Net

WASHINGTON, DC – America’s dairy farmers need a dramatically revised safety net in the next Farm Bill, one that shifts its emphasis from milk prices to margins, the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) told a House of Representatives panel today.

At a hearing Thursday of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry, NMPF President and CEO Jerry Kozak (pictured at left) testified that in a globalized dairy industry, buffeted by increased price volatility, dairy farmers needs a new safety net “that addresses both low milk prices, high input costs, or the combination.”

Pointing to the collective loss of $20 billion in farmer equity that occurred between 2007 and 2009, Kozak said that current farm bill dairy programs are inadequate, considering the higher cost of production that livestock producers are facing, and will continue to face. With America’s farmers more reliant today on volatile export markets, better risk management tools are needed, Kozak said.

For that reason, NMPF has endorsed the Dairy Security Act (DSA), which was introduced in Congress last year by Rep. Collin Peterson, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, along with Rep. Mike Simpson, a leading congressional Republican. The DSA package “is proactive, budget conscious, and fixes long-term challenges that our current safety net can’t address,” he said, adding that because of its advantages, the legislative proposal is backed by the American Farm Bureau, the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, the National Farmers Organization, the National Holstein Association, the Milk Producers Council, as well as a majority of other state dairy associations.

“This is an unprecedented level of support for such a major change, and has never happened before; shouldn’t this say something?,” Kozak asked.

The DSA replaces three existing farm bill dairy programs – the Dairy Product Price Support Program, the Milk Income Loss Contract program, and the Dairy Export Incentive Program – and uses the budget savings from those to help pay for the Dairy Producer Margin Protection Program.

But the margin insurance program “isn’t a guarantee of profits or success. Farmers won’t be able to insure all of their milk production, or all of their costs. This is first about protecting against the worst-case scenarios, and second about giving farmers the tools to help them manage their risk,” Kozak said.

Kozak cited several advantages to the approach taken by the DSA. Most importantly, it shifts away from a sole focus on milk prices, to insuring farmers against poor operating margins caused either by low milk prices or high feed costs. The Dairy Producer Margin Protection Program provides a no-cost basic level of margin insurance under the program, while offering farmers the option to purchase supplemental insurance to indemnify a larger margin.

“The DSA allows farmers to better manage their risks, offers a better safety net, reduces government involvement in our industry, and positions our entire industry to compete in a global marketplace. It is simple, affordable, and convenient,” he said.

Importantly, Kozak noted that the DSA is voluntary. The farmer “has a choice to accept a free basic margin insurance, as well as subsidized supplemental insurance, in which they share the costs with the government. As part of that agreement, they will be asked to manage their milk output through the Dairy Market Stabilization Program when worst-case conditions appear. Or, they can forgo government assistance, and not be subject to the DMSP.”

He pointed to the fact that the Market Stabilization program also contains triggers so that it does not activate when the world price and the domestic price are out of alignment, “a situation that could negatively affect the ability of the U.S. to export our products,” he said. Critics of the Market Stabilization program have said that the program will choke off dairy exports, but Kozak pointed to the ongoing financial commitment that America’s farmers make in both the U.S. Dairy Export Council and the Cooperatives Working Together program.

“Why would NMPF support a program that would negatively impact the investment of all those producer dollars?,” Kozak asked.

Kozak said the DSA would not raise consumer prices, but “merely reduces price volatility, and frankly, that benefits farmers, processors and consumers alike.”

The full House Agriculture Committee is expected to write a Farm Bill later this spring, and today’s hearing was part of the effort to consider policy options as part of that process.

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.

Bennet Amendment to Senate Farm Bill Dairy Program Costs Farmers $400 Million

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Impact of Measure is Huge Increase in Out of Pocket Costs for Dairy Farmers

ARLINGTON, VA – A proposed amendment to the Senate Agriculture Committee’s farm bill draft would cost dairy farmers more than $400 million in additional expenses, according to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF).

The Senate Agriculture Committee postponed consideration today of the 2012 Farm Bill, but when that process resumes, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) is expected to offer an amendment to make dramatic changes to the dairy title of the legislation. Bennet’s amendment would increase the cost to dairy farmers on the margin insurance program “by as much as a staggering $429 million in the next five years,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF.

“Senator Bennet’s amendment is both bad policy and bad politics,” Kozak said. “It drives up the cost of this program to farmers, and it erodes the careful political and economic balance that the Senate Ag committee has created.”

The dairy portion of the Senate farm bill proposal replaces three existing dairy programs, and uses the budget savings from those to help pay for the Dairy Producer Margin Protection Program. A basic, $4 level of margin insurance is free to farmers, although there are up-front administrative fees tied to the volume of milk insured under the program. If a farmer wishes to insure a larger margin, the premium rates increase with the level of protection.

Under the Bennet amendment, the costs to the dairy farmer – of both the initial administrative fee, and the supplemental premium rates – are greatly increased.

“Senator Bennet’s amendment would raise the overall price tag of the insurance program to farmers. Dairy processors say they agree with the concept of margin insurance, but with this amendment, they’re jacking up the cost of the program to farmers by millions of dollars a year, and once again shifting the risks of the marketplace away from them, onto the backs of our hard-working dairy farmers,” Kozak said.

NMPF has calculated the additional aggregate cost to farmers of the Bennet amendment, based on the average milk production of farms of in six size categories.

Each year of the farm bill, the additional cost paid by dairy producers would be $37 million for $4 of margin protection, and $86 million of $6 margin protection. Over the five-year lifespan of the farm bill, those figures balloon to $186 million, and $429 million.

Yesterday, NMPF wrote a letter to members of the Senate Agriculture Committee to oppose the Bennet amendment, reminding them of “the hard work that senators on both sides of the aisle have put into the completion of this mark. Please don’t allow last-minute amendments such as this to thwart all the effort that has been made to this point.”

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 31 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.

New FAPRI Analysis Indicates Effectiveness of Dairy Policy Changes Proposed for Farm Bill

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New Approach to Dairy Safety Net Endorsed by AFBF, NCFC

ARLINGTON, VA – A new analysis of the dairy policy changes being considered by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees finds that the reforms will have a minimal effect on milk production and dairy product exports, the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) said today.

At the same time, two other national farm groups, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC), have endorsed the changes in dairy policy that NMPF is pushing for on Capitol Hill. The groups sent a letter today to the Senate in support of the dairy reforms.

The new analysis was prepared by Dr. Scott Brown of the University of Missouri and the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute (FAPRI), and was commissioned by the House Agriculture Committee, which is holding a hearing this Thursday on dairy policy. Brown’s report analyzes the Dairy Security Act that the Senate Agriculture committee is also including in the Farm Bill draft it will consider this week. The program features a voluntary margin insurance program to protect against low milk prices or high feed costs, with a basic level of coverage available to all producers for free, and a supplemental, expanded level of coverage available for farmers to purchase. If farmers enroll in the Dairy Producer Margin Protection Program, they will also be subject to the Dairy Market Stabilization Program, which asks them to reduce their milk output when margins are very low.

The key take-away from the FAPRI report is that the dairy reforms reduce margin volatility at the farm level, without negatively affecting the supply of milk to either domestic or international markets, according to NMPF.

“This new assessment should calm any concerns on Capitol Hill that the U.S. dairy industry will be in any way diminished or hobbled by the changes we want to make,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “In fact, by reducing the chances that farmers will lose their equity, these policy reforms will strengthen our industry and make it more competitive in the long term.”

Brown’s study shows that, on average over the period of 2012-2022, there are only small effects on milk availability if the provisions of the Dairy Security Act are in place. Even with 70 percent of the milk supply participating in the program, the analysis shows that supplies average just one tenth of one percent (0.1%) less than the without the program [p. 9].

The impact of the Dairy Market Stabilization program on exports is minimal as well. For example, exports of nonfat dry milk would average just four million pounds lower, or 0.3 percent.

The program’s impact on consumer prices also would be minimal. The Brown analysis shows that during the eleven-year period studied, the national farm-level All-Milk price would average just five cents per hundredweight higher, or less than one-half cent a gallon [p. 10]. Such a small change is not likely to have any impact on retail prices for milk, cheese or other consumer products.

“This report corroborates the research that our own economists have conducted on this program, and demonstrates that margin volatility for farmers is reduced without milk prices being unduly raised. There are only small effects on the milk supply, so dairy product trade impacts are very small. Importantly, neither the margin protection nor the market stabilization programs will operate often, or for long periods of time. They are triggered in when needed, and they trigger back out when they are not,” Kozak said.

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 31 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.

National Milk Producers Federation Statement on USDA BSE Announcement

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From Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF

America’s dairy farmers are encouraged that the on-going surveillance and inspections performed by federal authorities continue to ensure that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, does not enter the U.S. food supply.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Tuesday that a BSE-infected animal was detected in California, in a dairy cow that was presented at a rendering plant. Three previous cases of BSE have been discovered in the U.S. in the past nine years.

Although details about the age and origins of the animal are being withheld pending further investigation, NMPF offered the following points about the issue:

  • Milk and dairy products do not contain or transmit BSE, and animals do not transmit the disease through cattle-to-human contact. The infectious prions that transmit BSE are found in neurological tissues, such as brains and spinal cords.
  • The United States put regulations in place in 1997 to prohibit ruminant protein from being used in animal feed. This applies to all cattle, dairy and beef alike.
  • Non-ambulatory animals – those that cannot walk – are not allowed to be processed at facilities where meat animals are handled. This regulation helps ensure that animals that are unwell are not entered into the food supply.

For more background on BSE and the dairy sector, visit the NMPF website.

The USDA also has an FAQ on BSE on its website.

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 31 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.