NMPF continues to push immigration reform efforts on Capitol Hill. Recently, the organization co-hosted a briefing for congressional offices with other agricultural organizations, and the Partnership for a New American Economy, to highlight agriculture’s struggle with the nation’s current immigration system. Among the speakers was a dairy farmer who spoke about the challenges he faces with securing workers and the inadequacies of the H-2A visa program for the dairy industry.

In the coming weeks, NMPF will focus its efforts on continued outreach to House members, particularly those in the Republican majority whose support will be necessary for immigration reform’s success.

In the first two months of 2014, Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) provided export assistance on 108 sales of cheese, 39 butter sales, and six whole milk powder sales.

Of 364 assistance requests received, CWT will provide assistance on 26.1 million pounds of Cheddar, Gouda, and Monterey Jack cheeses, 10.4 million pounds of 82% milk fat butter, and 698,895 pounds of whole milk powder. The products will go to 19 different countries and will be delivered through August 2014.

The milk equivalent on a milk fat basis of these sales is 475.3 million pounds of milk. Combined with the 2013 CWT-assisted sales scheduled to ship in the first six months of 2014, the total milk equivalent is equal to 25% of USDA’s projected increase in total milk marketings for all of 2014.

February was an active month for NMPF on some frustrating trade issues. It opened with Russia blocking entry of a shipment of Chobani yogurt meant for U.S. athletes at the Sochi Olympics, which called attention to the years-long Russian ban on the entry of U.S. dairy products. And it ended with NMPF joining the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) in chiding Canada and Japan for dragging their feet in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations.

The Russian yogurt blockade was the latest manifestation of a three-year-old embargo of U.S. dairy products that has U.S. interests increasingly angry. A large shipment of Sochi-bound Chobani yogurt was refused entry, even though the company was a major sponsor of the U.S. Olympic team.

“Russia has turned a cold shoulder to many U.S. businesses trying to ship dairy products,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “That’s despite three years of our trying to prove their safety.” Russia closed its market to U.S. dairy products in 2010 by changing what it required on a health certificate that accompanies dairy products imported into Russia and its Customs Union partners.

In the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, Canada and Japan have resisted allowing additional imports U.S. dairy products. After the latest round of talks, NMPF and USDEC issued a statement saying the United States should not allow the process to drag on indefinitely.

“It’s time to finish the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, including resolving the agricultural trade issues,” said USDEC President Tom Suber. “The principle of creating comprehensive market access is too important to this and future trade agreements. Therefore, if Japan and Canada are not committed to this goal, we need to move forward without them.”

NMPF’s Mulhern added that U.S. interests are ready to eliminate all tariffs on dairy products from both countries provided that Japan and Canada do the same. “If they are not willing to offer realistic market access to the United States, Japan and Canada are not serious about being part of TPP,” he said.

Through its membership in the Consortium for Common Food Names (CCFN), NMPF met last month with U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to help convey dairy producers’ strong concerns about the continued expansion of barriers to commonly named dairy products. A number of companies and associations, representing both dairy producers and processors, conveyed a unified industry position in opposition to the EU’s efforts to limit U.S. competition by confiscating common food names. The fly-in meetings also included discussions the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and with Congressional staff.

The EU has been actively using its free trade agreements to seek to block U.S. companies from using many common product names (e.g., romano, muenster, parmesan, feta, and more). It executes this goal by terming those generic terms “geographical indications” (GIs) and claiming that only certain European producers should be authorized to use them. The EU has been clear that it sees the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) as a way to put those restrictions in place in the U.S. market itself – thereby impacting not just U.S. exports, but also domestic sales. The meetings with leading U.S. government officials were intended to provide NMPF and other industry leaders with an opportunity to underscore the U.S. industry’s strong opposition to the EU’s latest in a long series of protectionist strategies.

The Food and Drug Administration announced this week that companies currently exporting to China or seeking to do so in the near future must register their dairy and infant formula storage facilities with FDA to be included on the list of establishments eligible for export to China. Members may recall that last month NMPF provided notice that FDA was encouraging all companies interested in shipping to China to register their plants with FDA. This latest clarification from FDA is in addition to that earlier notice.

The deadline to include plant and storage facilities on FDA’s list and avoid the possibility of disruption in exports to China is Friday, March 14th. Any requests FDA receives after that date will not be on the initial list transmitted by FDA to China but would be provided subsequently at a later stage.

In order to register your storage facility, please email Esther Lazar an attachment on company letterhead with the following information:

1. Business name and address.
2. Name, telephone number, and email (if available) of contact person.
3. List of products presently stored that may be shipped to China and those intended to be stored and shipped.
4. Name and address of the storage facility for each product.
5. Name of any federal, state, or local governmental agencies that inspect the facility, along with the government assigned Facility Establishment Identifier (FEI) number and date of last inspection.
6. Copy of last inspection notice and, if other than an FDA inspection, copy of last inspection report.

Only one out of 7,200 milk tankers tested positive for antibiotic residues last year, according to the National Milk Drug Residue Database 2013 report, released last month by the Food and Drug Administration. The new report showed that the decade-long decline in bulk milk samples testing positive for residues is continuing. Of the approximately 3.2 million milk pickup tankers tested, only 445 (or 0.014%) yielded a positive – down from 0.017% in 2012. This is the seventh year in a row that the percentage of positive tankers has declined.

Additionally, not a single sample of the 40,435 consumer-packaged pasteurized milk products tested positive for animal drug residues. Data from four of the last five years have not yielded a single positive result for pasteurized products.

Meanwhile, NMPF continues to monitor the progress of the FDA-CVM raw milk sampling assignment. A final report is expected soon.

The Food and Drug Administration’s long-awaited proposal to revamp the Nutrition Facts panel on packaged foods, released last month, includes both pluses and minuses for dairy.

NMPF applauded the added label focus on two key nutrients in milk, potassium and vitamin D, saying they “will help consumers better understand the important role that dairy plays in a healthy diet.”

But NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern also said plans to list “added sugars” on the panel – based on recommendations that Americans reduce their intake of calories from added sugar – need clarification. “We look forward to working with the FDA to address this issue,” Mulhern said.

According to the FDA, the Nutrition Facts changes reflect new dietary recommendations, consensus reports and national survey data, including the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, and intake data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The FDA also considered comments from the public.

Other proposed changes would update serving-size requirements to better align with how much people really eat and present calorie and nutrition information for some products for the whole package, in addition to per serving. Serving sizes for ice cream will increase, but will decrease for yogurt. The new label also features a fresh design to highlight key nutritional concepts that are important in addressing public health problems like obesity and heart disease.

Mulhern said NMPF is open to improvements that will help consumers make informed choices. “We applaud highlighting potassium and vitamin D – two nutrients most Americans are not consuming enough of,” he said. Vitamin D is important in bone health and potassium is beneficial in lowering blood pressure. The panel already highlights two other key dairy nutrients, calcium, and protein.

The changes would affect all packaged foods except meat, poultry and processed egg products, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

NMPF thanked the Agriculture Department last week for allowing states to substitute some yogurt for milk in the federal government’s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program.

The dairy industry had pushed for the change for those who are lactose intolerant or who might not drink milk for other reasons. Only low-fat and nonfat yogurt will be allowed except for very young children.

“Like milk, yogurt is an excellent source of protein, calcium and other nutrients,” said NMPF Vice President for Nutrition Beth Briczinski. “And it’s preferred by some over milk. That’s why the Institute of Medicine, as well as the dairy industry, had recommended allowing yogurt as a substitute for milk in the WIC food packages several years ago.”

USDA initially rejected that recommendation, citing concerns over cost. However, in final regulations to be issued formally next week, USDA is reversing that decision. States will now be allowed to authorize WIC recipients to purchase up to a quart of yogurt monthly as a substitute for one quart of milk.

“This is a common-sense decision that gives states more flexibility to meet the needs of WIC participants,” Briczinski said. “Yogurt is convenient, popular and comparable to milk nutritionally. WIC participants should have the option to purchase yogurt instead of milk, especially if they have difficulty digesting milk.”

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is designed to improve the health of low-income pregnant women, new mothers, infants and young children. Milk and other dairy products figure prominently in the WIC food packages and account for nearly a third of all purchases under the program.

The Dragun Corporation (highlighted in this issue’s Associate Member Focus), in its 25-year history of environmental assessment and remediation, has worked with dairy producers on a variety of complex environmental issues. For example, when groups opposed the approval of permit applications for dairy farms because of concerns that manure might threaten water supplies, Dragun used sound science and site-specific data to provide reliable opinions on the subject. When a producer was going to develop a CAFO, but was uncertain about a long-term water supply, Dragun tested the groundwater yield and chemistry using state-of-the-science methods to provide reliable data to assist with the producer’s decision. Dragun uses science and engineering to be resolute when state and federal regulatory agencies suggest unreasonable monitoring or remedies. If the issue goes to court, Dragun has a long track record of providing well-reasoned litigation support on a variety of environmental issues.

Dragun has also worked with dairy cooperatives, processing plants, and NMPF to provide environmental consulting support. When a new milk processing plant was being developed, Dragun was asked by the co-op to work on their behalf to negotiate with regulators the approval of several environmental permits. When a co-op was conducting merger and acquisitions of processing plants, Dragun was asked to conduct environmental due diligence on properties to be purchased. Dragun has worked with NMPF on their environmental task force, lending particular expertise in scientific and environmental engineering disciplines. Dragun also developed the SPCC template that is found on the NMPF website.

Since the dawn of civilization, agriculture has been improved by a continuous process of breeding new plants and animals. Some of the earliest genetic modifications came when herders figured out how to breed certain of their livestock– including Aurochs, the ancient ancestors of today’s dairy cow – to improve their desirable traits.

Human understanding of how to improve all agricultural species, whether animals or plants, has come a long way since then. We have evolved from the ancient trial and error approach, to Austrian scientist Gregor Mendel’s groundbreaking 19th century discovery of how genetic traits are inherited, to today’s more precise ability to decode and transfer specific genes.

Just as Mendel’s pioneering genetic work was controversial in its day, the 21st century use of genetic modification of agricultural crops is the target of today’s anti-science crowd. And that’s causing those of us in food production a new headache, as these critics try to scare consumers by raising fears that have no basis in fact.

The dairy sector is all too familiar with complaints about the presence of GMOs. Twenty years ago, when the Food and Drug Administration first permitted the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin in dairy farming, one of the complaints was that the drug was produced by genetically-modified bacteria. That specific anti-GMO argument lost traction over time, as the main objection to rBST became the presence of hormones in the milk supply, regardless of the fact that all milk contains hormones – and there is nothing harmful about them.

Today, largely in an effort to help boost sales of organic goods, the anti-biotech bandwagon has become reenergized if not reengineered, and is focused on the presence of GMO-derived ingredients in a variety of foods. It’s a big, inviting target for those who want to cast doubt on the safety of our food supply. More than 90% of the corn, soybeans, sugar beets and cotton grown today in the U.S. sprout from seeds that have been genetically modified to offer a specific beneficial trait – often for insect or weed-killer resistance. The output of these crops –   all of which have gone through extensive evaluation for human and animal safety – is consumed, in various forms, by both humans and livestock. It’s hard to find any processed foods in the U.S. without some trace of GMO ingredients, and next to impossible to find livestock that haven’t been raised on GMO feedstuffs (excepting, of course, organic foods).

That means food marketers across the value chain are perpetually exposed to critics, however shrill and unreasonable, on this issue. As we’ve seen in states from California to Connecticut, the anti-technology crowd has gone both to state legislatures, as well as to the ballot box, to push for mandatory labeling of foods containing GMO ingredients. High-profile labeling battles on the West coast, including California’s ballot initiative, as well as the more recent one in Washington State, were lost by the GMO critics. But labeling bills were passed last year in Connecticut and Maine – though they won’t become effective unless additional states in that region pass similar measures.

For groups like NMPF that support the appropriate, science-based use of biotechnology in food, and are concerned with the demonization of products that are time-tested and safe, what are the best responses?

We can and do use the facts, such as that feeding cows GMO grain does not in any way affect the milk from those dairy cows – there is no detectable difference compared to milk from cows fed crops that aren’t genetically modified. The same applies to their meat. Most of the labeling initiatives at the state level have exempted dairy products for this obvious reason.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped the activist assault, using social media in many cases, against branded companies that won’t disavow the use of GMO feeds in their milk supply. We’ve seen recent cases where prominent manufacturers of yogurt and butter have been targets of these actions. In both cases, the critics’ call to action – despite making no case for a difference in the product – was to urge consumers to buy organic. The targets shift, but the tactics remain the same.

The dairy sector has worked to develop consumer-focused information intended to put this issue into context, such as that crops produced through biotechnology are researched extensively to make sure they are safe for people, animals and the environment. Government agencies closely review the safety data and do not approve products unless they can be demonstrated safe. Today’s biotech products receive an average investment of $136 million and 13 years of research to bring to market. And one of the most important facts: after 20 years of use, and billions of servings consumed by humans and animals, there is not one single documented case of an adverse health reaction due to GMO food consumption. None. Unfortunately, facts presented without emotion suffer in comparison to falsehoods presented with feeling.

Part of our challenge on GMO grain use today is similar to what the dairy sector dealt with 20 years ago on rBST. The pushback by activists trying to generate consumer concern puts farmers in the middle, caught between their customers, and the compelling benefits of agricultural biotechnology. The reality is GMO seeds help farmers use fewer chemicals, reduce water and fuel usage, and allow more crops to be harvested without plowing over additional acres of land. Farmers will always be the best advocates for their practices. The best defense is an offense in which farmers talk about the real benefits to the environment and the public from GMO traits.

Critics of ag biotechnology assert that this battle is over who “controls” the food supply. The reality is that this is a battle for control over the choices that every participant in the food chain can make, and if we don’t participate in the discussion, there will be far fewer choices for everyone.

From Jim Mulhern, President and Chief Executive Officer, NMPF:

“As we review the details of today’s announcement on proposed food label changes, we are open to improvements that will help consumers make informed choices.

“We applaud the provision to highlight a food’s dietary contribution of potassium and vitamin D – two nutrients most Americans are not consuming enough of. Milk is a great source of those, as well as two other key nutrients, calcium and protein, that are already highlighted on the current nutrition facts panel. This change will help consumers better understand the important role that dairy plays in a healthy diet.

“There are some parts of the proposal that need greater clarification, such as the definition of ‘added sugars,’ and we look forward to working with the FDA to address these issues.”

 

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 nearly 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies.

The ongoing – and so far, inconclusive negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), must result in the free trade of dairy products between the United States, Canada and Japan, according to organizations representing America’s dairy farmers, processors and exporters. The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) also say progress on market access into those two markets has been frustratingly slow, and U.S. negotiators shouldn’t allow the process to drag on indefinitely.

The statement by the U.S. dairy groups follows ministerial-level meetings in Singapore this week on several contentious, yet-to-be resolved issues, including resistance by Canada and Japan to allow further market access for “sensitive” sectors, including dairy imports. The TPP involves a significant number of markets bordering the Pacific Ocean, including the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern noted, “The U.S. dairy industry is prepared to eliminate all tariffs affecting dairy trade with Canada and Japan, as long as they do the same. If Japan and Canada are not willing to make an effort and offer realistic market access to the U.S., then they are not serious about being part of TPP.”

“It is time to finish the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, including resolving the treatment of agricultural trade,” said Tom Suber, president of USDEC. “The principle of creating comprehensive market access is too important to this and future trade agreements. Therefore, if Japan and Canada are not committed to this goal, we need to move forward without them.”

Suber noted that the U.S. dairy sector, in consultation with government officials, “has been patient and flexible with our Japanese and Canadian friends, but we are running out of both patience and time. We strongly believe there is an achievable deal to which both countries can agree, but that deal must include substantial market access for our products. It cannot be any other way.”

In addition to addressing market access, both organizations noted that any comprehensive agreement also must include effective disciplines for applying sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures that are science-based and enforceable, and preventing restrictions on the use of common food products.

Finally, the two U.S. dairy industry groups reiterated their concerns regarding New Zealand’s monopolistic dairy structure that creates unfair commercial advantages for a single company, and reminded US negotiators that the TPP talks must address that concern.

 

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.

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 nearly 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies.