The National Dairy FARM Program^TM continues to gain momentum. The completion of the first training workshop signals the start of the second phase of the implementation of the FARM animal care program.

In May, the first “Train-the Trainer” workshop was held in Rochester, MN. Over 20 veterinarians, cooperative field staff, and university extension educators participated in the training. By successfully completing the two-day workshop, the attendees are certified to train other evaluators to conduct on-farm evaluations. Additional workshops are schedule for June 29-30 in Fresno, CA, and July 20-21, in Harrisburg, PA. On-farm evaluations are expected to begin in July.

On May 26, a videotape from an Ohio dairy was released showing deeply disturbing images and animal handling practices. Ohio’s animal cruelty laws prohibit acts of unnecessary or cruel beating of domestic or livestock animals. NMPF supports further investigation into the situation on the farm.

Though some try to paint all of dairy with a broad brush when these videos are released, the vast majority of dairy producers practice responsible animal stewardship. The National Dairy FARM Program is designed to promote and verify the best practices in animal care. By collecting information on current animal care practices on the farm and verifying that information is accurate, the dairy industry can assure consumers an customers that producers are committed to providing the highest level of animal care.

The goal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) program is to prevent oil spills into waters of the United States and adjoining shorelines. A key element of the program calls for farmers and other facilities to have an oil spill prevention plan, called an SPCC Plan. The SPCC plans are required for farms which have an aggregate storage capacity of oil products (including animal fats, i.e. milk) of 1320 gallons or more for every storage container larger than 55 gallons. This storage does not include vehicle storage capacity. A farm with less than 10,000 gallons of total storage capacity and no single storage greater than 5,000 gallons can self-certify their SPCC plan. Farms that do not meet this exemption must have a plan certified by a professional engineer.

On May 24, 2010, NMPF sent a letter to EPA requesting finalization for the bulk milk storage exemption from the SPCC rule. On January 15, 2009, EPA proposed to exempt bulk milk storage that is subject to the PMO from requirements of the SPCC to provide significant relief to dairy farmers by removing a great number from having to produce a SPCC plan (those under 1320 gallons of storage) and moving many more into the self-certification option, rather than requiring a professional engineer-certified plan. In the letter, NMPF requested that EPA finalize the exemption quickly, to allow dairy producers adequate time to comply with the SPCC regulatory deadline later this year.

Late in May, Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI) introduced H.R.5426 to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to finalize a proposed rule to amend the spill prevention, control, and countermeasure rule to tailor and streamline the requirements for the dairy industry. The legislation, supported by NMPF, directs EPA to finalize the bulk milk storage exemption for the SPCC rule and provides forbearance on regulatory actions until such time.

In the coming weeks, a highly anticipated vote is expected to take place in the U.S. Senate to halt the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from moving forward with its plans to regulate greenhouse gases (GHG). As the issue of climate change is being debated in Congress, the EPA is moving ahead to establish permits, through its authority under the Clean Air Act (CAA), for emitters of GHGs. Those required to get these new permits could range from the largest textile factory and coal-fired power plants, to possibly even small dairy operations. In fact, if this vote fails, nearly 99% of all U.S. dairy farms could be hit with the new EPA regulations.

In accordance with a law known as the Congressional Review Act of 1996, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced a resolution of disapproval (S.J. Res. 26) to veto the EPA’s expansion of authority. That act provides Congress with the ability to reject certain rules and regulations developed by federal agencies. Currently, there are 40 cosponsors signed on to the legislation. Fortunately, unlike many other controversial measures in the Senate, the resolution only requires 51 votes to succeed.

For further details on S.J. Res. 26, as well as for information on how to get involved, please visit the NMPF Dairy G.R.E.A.T. website.

NMPF has been active in working to keep key markets open in both Europe and China, while also attempting to increase market opportunities in Cuba.

The situation in China is a challenging and continually evolving one. The Chinese government indicated in late April that it would continue to accept only U.S. food-grade dairy products accompanied by a certificate dated May 31st or earlier, regardless of when the product actually arrived in China. On May 31st, Chinese authorities told the U.S. government that it does not currently plan to enforce the June 1 health certificate deadline that had been previously announced. Chinese customs officers have not been informed that they are to stop accepting shipments lacking a certificate dated prior to June 1. Although this far falls short of the certainty that is needed to restore smooth market functioning, it is better than a definitive market closure. It is NMPF’s understanding that swift movement by the U.S. to work towards finding agreement on new certificate language has been helpful, and could resolve this situation, if China accepts reasonable offers by the U.S. government.

Another issue of great concern to many NMPF members has been the E.U. Somatic Cell Count issue. Late last year, the E.U. informed the U.S. government that exporters would need to test for compliance to the E.U.’s 400,000 SCC limit at the individual farm level, rather than at the tanker or silo levels, as had customarily been the practice. This poses a significant challenge for many coops and as a result, NMPF has been working with our government to evaluate the legitimacy of the EU’s requirements, and to evaluate more workable compliance criteria.

Concrete information from the U.S. government regarding how it plans to require companies to document compliance with the E.U. criteria remains extremely limited – a point that heightens the challenge facing coops as they find ways to deal with this issue. NMPF will continue to keep members fully informed of developments as work with the government moves forward.

Finally, NMPF is also working to expand markets. The U.S. currently ships some dairy products to Cuba, a market where close proximity would give the U.S. a strong advantage were policies not complicating our ability to sell there. To help correct this, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Peterson, along with Rep. Jerry Moran (R-KS), have introduced H.R. 4645, which would ease agricultural payment restrictions limiting U.S. competitiveness, as well as permit travel by all Americans to Cuba. The latter is expected to offer the prospect of expanded agricultural sales, including of higher value-added products such as cheese. As a result, NMPF has been strongly supportive of this legislation and is hopeful that it soon will be taken up in the House Agriculture Committee.

On April 28, 2010, NMPF sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration asking it to take action against imitation dairy products that were misbranded by illegally using terms for which standards of identity have been defined (e.g. milk, cheese, yogurt, etc.). Thus far, there has been no official response to the letter from FDA.

Efforts to increase awareness about the issue of misbranding have been successful. On April 29th, a story ran on the front page of USA Today and a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/theydontgotmilk) was launched. Within a week, over 250 comments were posted on the USA Today discussion board, and the Facebook page had been visited over 5,100 times. Currently, over 800 people are fans of the “They Don’t Got Milk” site, representing 20 different countries and 6 continents.

NMPF has dedicated a webpage (www.nmpf.org/fda-form) that allows consumers to directly email a letter to the FDA urging them to take action on the issue of misbranded imitation dairy products. Currently, 67 letters have been sent to FDA through the site. The letter contains pre-written text to simplify the process, although there is the option to add customized text and include a photo of a misbranded product. The form was designed to make the process simple and fast, so NMPF encourages people to send a letter today to the FDA.

To those in the dairy industry, the month of June not only means the arrival of summer, but also the observance of June Dairy Month, which started in 1937 as a promotion to help distribute extra milk when cows started on pasture in the warm summer months. Today, its rich history continues, with communities, companies, and people from all over the country observing June Dairy Month in a variety of ways.

Throughout the month of June, spread the word about the goodness of dairy products and their nutritional significance in a healthy diet.

After reviewing a number of economic benchmarks including cull rates and cull cow prices, Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) announced last week that it will conduct a herd retirement. Bids will be accepted until Friday, June 25. Bid forms can be downloaded here:www.cwt.coop/action/action_herd.html.

“It is our belief that a herd retirement at this time will add to the positive momentum already building and should result in speeding up the milk price recovery already in progress,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF, which manages CWT.

This is the tenth herd retirement since CWT began operations in the summer of 2003. The most recent was conducted in the fall of 2009. As was the case in 2009’s herd retirement rounds, CWT has no set target for the volume of milk or the number of cows to be removed in this herd retirement.

“With beef prices very strong, and replacement cow and springer prices still relatively low, CWT has determined that it will consider bids up to, but not to exceed, $3.75 per hundredweight,” noted Mr. Kozak. “However, there is no guarantee that a producer who bids at the maximum level will be selected.”

Producers must still bid on a per hundredweight basis, and CWT will continue to review and accept bids beginning from the lowest bids received, moving up toward the maximum level. Farmers whose bids are accepted are paid by CWT for their milk production, and they also retain the beef value of the cows they send to processing.

Meanwhile, CWT’s export assistance program has been aggressive in the past three months since it was reactivated. The program has helped export nearly 16,000 metric tons of cheese to 17 countries.

In a December 4, 2009 letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, NMPF asked the agency to implement the mandatory product inventory reporting program required by a law passed nearly a decade ago. The request to USDA was prompted by the revelation that the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service made unexpected revisions to its estimate of cheese inventories, raising concerns that market prices may have been depressed by inaccurate data.

NMPF’s analysis was that the reporting errors didn’t have a significant impact on farm-level prices, but the episode again raised concerns about the inadequacy of the current reporting system, which relies on unaudited and voluntary surveys, despite a decade-old statute calling for mandatory dairy product inventory reporting.

NMPF’s letter urged the USDA to direct the Agricultural Marketing Service to undertake the mandatory dairy product inventory reporting program required by law, using the full electronic reporting program for prices and inventories that is authorized by the same statute.

In comments made last month to USDA, NMPF praised USDA’s recommended decision to limit the producer-handler exemption to smaller plants as a substantial improvement over the status quo, and praised the agency for sticking to their new congressionally-mandated timelines.

However, NMPF urged USDA to add criteria for producer-handlers, including unique labeling and independent ownership requirements, that could help prevent the multiplication of exempted producer-handlers within a larger operation. In addition, NMPF pointed out flawed language in USDA’s draft that would make the limit ineffective by allowing producer-handlers to have unlimited sales of packaged milk to other plants.

NMPF’s comments were submitted on December 21, in response to the recommended decision published by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service in the October 21 Federal Register. This decision would only allow producer-handlers with less than three million pounds of route sales of packaged fluid milk to qualify for the current exemption from pricing and pooling requirements under the Federal Order. NMPF and the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) had initiated last year’s hearing by petitioning for the elimination of the producer-handler provisions, and the expansion of the exempt plant definition to allow smaller plants to maintain their exemption. NMPF had also proposed grandfathering producer-handler plants with less than three million pounds of sales, and with the marketing and ownership conditions that NMPF now urges USDA to reconsider for the general producer-handler exemption.

Links to most of the documents from the hearing can be found on the USDA website at www.ams.usda.gov/dairy. If you have questions about NMPF’s position, call Roger Cryan at the NMPF office.

USDA has issued checks for nearly all of the $290 million that Congress provided for direct payments to dairy farmers. The $290 million was divided among, roughly, all the MILC-eligible milk produced from February through July of 2009. That came out to about 64¢ per cwt. on milk from that time period, or 32¢ per cwt. after USDA doubled the volume to estimate an annual production total. This works out to a maximum payment of about $19,200 on annual volume capped at six million pounds (or three million pounds for February through July production), and a payment of about $11,000 for the average licensed dairy herd of 170 cows.

New producers, producers who have not been paid, and producers who believe there is an error in their payment should contact USDA’s Danielle Cooke in Washington, D.C., at Danielle.Cooke@wdc.usda.gov. They may be required to submit a request for DELAP by January 19. For more information, see USDA’s REVISED fact sheet on the DELAP (http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/delap09.pdf).

A decade after it first asked the federal Food and Drug Administration to crack down on the misappropriation of dairy terminology on imitation milk products, NMPF last week sent another petition to the FDA, asserting that the practice has gotten worse in the past 10 years.

In its petition submitted April 29th, NMPF contended that not only have the terms “soy milk” and “soymilk” continued to proliferate, but also other dairy-specific terms like “yogurt,” “cheese,” and “ice cream” are now being used by products made out of a wide variety of non-dairy ingredients.

“The FDA has allowed the meaning of ‘milk’ to be watered down to the point where many products that use the term have never seen the inside of a barn,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “You don’t got milk if it comes from a hemp plant, you can’t say cheese if it’s made from rice, and faux yogurt can’t be made from soy and still be called yogurt,” he said.

This matter was originally brought to the attention of the FDA in February 2000, when NMPF sent a letter asking that the agency make clear to manufacturers of imitation dairy products that product names permitted by federal standards of identity, including dairy terms such as “milk,” are to be used only on foods actually made from milk from animals like cows, goats, and sheep. The FDA has failed to act on that petition, so NMPF “is again asking our regulators to defend the letter and the spirit of regulations intended to prevent false and misleading labeling on consumer products,” Kozak said.

NMPF’s petition cites examples including imitation milks made from hemp, rice, almonds, and other plants, legumes and vegetables; yogurts made from soybeans and rice; and cheeses made from soy, rice, and nuts. In some cases, marketers use superficial word changes, such as “cheeze,” in an apparent attempt to skirt the standards of identity regulations.

Non-dairy products “can vary wildly in their composition and are inferior to the nutrient profile of those from dairy milk – although they are marketed as replacements for foods that consumers are familiar with and which have a healthful image,” Kozak said. “Although some phony dairy foods may have a passing resemblance to their authentic counterparts, they are very different in nutritional value, composition, and performance from standardized dairy products.”

Examples of products that exploit the lax enforcement of dairy product labeling can be found here:www.facebook.com/theydontgotmilk. Consumers who have examples of what they believe are improperly-labeled imitation dairy products can post examples at that Facebook page. Additionally, consumers can use a webform on the NMPF website to send examples directly to the Food and Drug Administration and/or urge the agency to take action on the matter at: www.nmpf.org/fda-form.

Lauren Mosemann testified on April 20th before the House Agriculture Committee in Harrisburg, PA, on behalf of member cooperative Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) in April. Lauren and her husband, Mark, farm with his family at Misty Mountain Dairy in Warfordsburg, PA.

The hearing was focused on the dairy industry and future policy. With dairy farmers in the United States having experienced their worst financial year in memory in 2009, NMPF encouraged Congress to focus on solutions that address the underlying problems that caused the crisis and will help the industry avoid recurrences of this situation in the future.

The testimony highlighted that last year, NMPF created a Strategic Planning Task Force to seek consensus across the dairy producer community and create a solid “Foundation for the Future.” Mosemann further explained that the goal has been to analyze and develop a long-term strategic plan that will have a positive impact on the various factors influencing both supply and demand for milk and dairy products. Mosemann outlined the different aspects of the NMPF proposal and emphasized that both the Dairy Product Price Support Program and the MILC program are inadequate protections against not just periodic low milk prices, but also destructively low profit margins that occur when input costs, especially feed prices, rise rapidly. More specifically, it was emphasized that the Price Support Program, in particular, seems to have outlived its usefulness and now hinders the ability of U.S. and world markets to adjust to supply-demand signals. Neither program was designed to function in a more globalized market, where not just milk prices, but also feed costs and energy expenses, are more volatile and trending higher.

In closing, Mosemann addressed other issues of importance to dairy including immigration and estate tax reform. As other hearings are scheduled in the coming weeks and months, NMPF will seek further opportunities to advocate for much-needed dairy policy reform.