The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) applauded the announcement this week that the Obama Administration and Colombia have reached an agreement on an action plan that will help to move forward the long-stalled Free Trade Agreement between the U.S. and Colombia.

“NMPF strongly supports all three pending FTAs – including the one with Colombia – and it is exciting to see the White House take a step closer to advancing each of them,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “Dairy producers are looking to expand our export opportunities wherever possible and hope that this signals that we will soon see the Colombia FTA, as well as the vitally important Korea and Panama FTAs, submitted for Congressional approval.”

“Our industry has been eager to see this FTA move forward with an important Latin American ally and growing market for dairy products,” said Tom Suber, president of USDEC. “U.S. dairy exports to Colombia are currently greatly limited by tariffs that exceed 90% for many products of significance to us. We are eager to work with the Administration to help move this FTA to implementation in order to knock down these tariffs blocking greater U.S. dairy sales.”

NMPF estimates that the U.S.-Colombia FTA would deliver, on average, an additional $25 million a year in benefits to U.S. dairy producers during the phase-in period of the agreement. Both organizations urged the Administration to move swiftly to seek Congressional approval of the U.S.-Colombia FTA, as well as the FTAs with South Korea and Panama, given the strong benefits for the U.S. dairy industry in each agreement.

The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) is a non-profit, independent membership organization that represents the export trade interest of U.S. milk producers, proprietary processors, dairy cooperatives, and export traders. Its mission is to enhance international demand for U.S. dairy products and assist the industry to increase the volume and value of exports. USDEC accomplishes this through market development programs that build overseas demand for U.S. dairy products, resolving market access barriers and advancing the industry’s trade policy goals. USDEC activities are supported by staff in Mexico, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, South America, Middle East and Europe. Website: www.usdec.org.

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 40,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies

 

 

At its spring meeting on March 8, the National Milk Producers Federation’s Board of Directors agreed to support a series of major reforms in the Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) program, intended to renovate the economic structure of the U.S. dairy sector. The changes will be packaged as part of the Foundation for the Future program that NMPF has been developing during the past 18 months.

The proposal:

• Replaces end product pricing formulas with a competitive milk pricing system;
• Incorporates two classes of milk – fluid (Class I) and manufacturing (formerly Class II, III and IV product uses);
• Maintains the higher of for establishing the fluid use (Class I) minimum base price;
• Maintains current Class I regional differentials;
• Maintains the number and basic structure and provisions of Federal Orders.

The changes approved at the board meeting – which were developed by a committee of dairy policy experts from across the industry – maintain the basic framework of the FMMO system, but eliminate some of the most contentious elements from the current structure, such as make allowances, which are the result of the end product pricing formulas now used to price farmers’ milk.

NMPF President and CEO Jerry Kozak said that the Federal Order reforms will be incorporated into legislative language and submitted to Congress to review, as part of the overall Foundation for the Future package. He said that the proposal will be shared with other stakeholders in the dairy sector, including processors, in an effort to build consensus around the changes.

“There has long been a shared notion that change is needed; now we’ve taken a big step toward defining what that change should look like,” Kozak said. “We are looking forward to explaining to everyone, from farmers to processors to lawmakers, how a competitive pricing system, and shifting the pricing basis to two classes of milk, will make the Federal Order system more flexible and sensible.”

New documents giving an overview of the proposed FMMO reform and an explanation of how the FMMO reform works were posted in the News & Resources section of the Foundation for the Future website. A new video was also released last month that described the need for policy reform in the U.S. dairy industry, and how Foundation for the Future could accomplish it. The video is available at www.futurefordairy.com and on NMPF’s YouTube channel. Anyone interested in receiving a hard DVD copy of the video may do so through the Contact Us page on the Foundation for the Future website.

 

After many years of delay, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a final rule applying the long-delayed promotion checkoff on dairy imports, a development hailed by NMPF.

NMPF first worked with Congress to include a provision in the 2002 Farm Bill to expand the promotion checkoff to imports, but the expansion was blocked due to objections that the domestic checkoff was not applied to farmers in all 50 states, only the continental 48. So, NMPF again worked with Congress as it wrote the 2008 Farm Bill to ensure that the checkoff was applied in every state. However, implementation of the measure has languished for the past three years in regulatory limbo – until now.

On March 18, 2011, a final rule was released by USDA. It extends the checkoff to all 50 states and Puerto Rico as of April 1st, and starting on August 1st, it assesses the equivalent of 7.5 cents per hundredweight on all dairy-based imports, including cheese and butter products, as well as dry ingredients such as casein and milk protein concentrates. The money will be collected by the National Dairy Board to be used for nutrition research, consumer education, issues management, and other programs that build demand for dairy consumption.

“It’s been a long time in coming, but we’ve finally achieved a degree of fairness in the area of dairy promotion between domestic milk production and imports. Dairy importers, who benefit from the world’s largest dairy market, need to help pay to expand that market, the same way that our farmers do,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “We appreciate the efforts of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to recognize how important it was to finally resolve this issue.”

Under the new import assessment, regional and state promotions, including those in Wisconsin and California, will continue to drive demand for dairy products, and the program will, in all substantive respects, continue to run as it has. The USDA has stated that the dairy import assessment will be administered so as to continue to permit state and regional promotions.

NMPF released a document of Frequently Asked Questions to help clarify the impact that this assessment will make on the dairy industry.

 

On March 15th, the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans issued a unanimous ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot require livestock farmers to apply for Clean Water Act (CWA) permits unless their farms actually discharge manure into United States waters. In the ruling, the Court concluded: “The CWA provides a comprehensive liability scheme and the EPA’s attempt to supplement this scheme is in excess of its statutory authority.”

According to the ruling, non-discharging confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) do not need permit coverage. In addition, CAFOs cannot face separate liability for “failure to apply” for permit coverage, as EPA’s rule provided. Instead, where a CAFO does not seek permit coverage, the CWA imposes liability only for discharges that occur from the unpermitted CAFO. The National Milk Producers Federation was a participant in the lawsuit.

Agriculture Committee Chairperson Senator Stabenow Kicks of 2012 Farm Bill Hearings

The first “2012 Farm Bill” hearing of the 112th Congress will begin on April 9th. Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, is hosting a field hearing in her home state of Michigan. The hearing will be at the Kellogg Center on the Michigan State University campus in Lansing from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm. More information about the location is available at www.kelloggcenter.com/about/location.html.

Written testimony may be submitted for the record to the Senate Agriculture Committee no later than April 16, 2011. Send your testimony or questions to aghearing@ag.senate.gov or to:

US Senate Committee on Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry
328A Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510

NMPF will be submitting testimony for the record.

There is still time to take advantage of the early-bird registration rate for the National Dairy Producers Conference (NDPC) in Omaha, Nebraska from May 15 – 17. After April 13, the cost of registration will go up, and hotel rooms and farm tour spots will only be confirmed on a space and rate-available basis.

Secure your meeting registration, hotel reservation, and farm tour spot online at www.registration123.com/NMPF/2011NDPC. Although participants are encouraged to register online, conference registration forms submitted through the mail with credit card or check payment will also be accepted.

Formerly known as the National Dairy Leaders Conference, the NDPC gives dairy producer participants the opportunity to listen, learn, and lead. It provides a way to critically analyze the status of the dairy industry now and discuss possible solutions for the future.

Even though the conference is geared primarily toward dairy producers, anyone with a stake in the dairy industry is invited to attend. This may include dairy cooperative executives and directors, dairy processors, suppliers and consultants to the dairy business, state and federal regulators, promotion organization executives, and academics.

More information about the NDPC, including the agenda and details about the conference’s location, is available at www.nmpf.org/NDPC.

Graduate students currently pursuing dairy-related fields of research in Master’s or Ph.D. programs only have until Easter to submit their applications for NMPF’s National Dairy Leadership Scholarship Program. Applications will no longer be accepted after April 21.

Each year, NMPF awards at least four scholarships to outstanding graduate students who are conducting research that would benefit NMPF member cooperatives and the U.S. dairy industry at large.

Interested students are encouraged to submit an application (applicants do not need to be members of NMPF to qualify). The top scholarship applicant will be awarded the Hintz Memorial Scholarship, which was created in 2005 in honor of the late Cass-Clay Creamery Board Chairman Murray Hintz.

Recommended fields of study include but are not limited to: Agriculture Communications and Journalism, Animal Health, Animal and/or Human Nutrition, Bovine Genetics, Dairy Products Processing, Dairy Science, Economics, Environmental Science, Food Science, Food Safety, Herd Management, and Marketing and Price Analysis. Applications must be received no later than Thursday, April 21, 2011. For an application or more information, please visit the NMPF website or call the NMPF office at 703-243-6111.