NMPF’s Executive Vice President Paul Bleiberg gives Dairy Radio Now the background on this week’s decision by USDA to adjust spending for WIC program recipients, and how that will impact dairy purchases, including milk, as the changes are implemented.
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FARM Biosecurity Program Outlines HPAI Prevention and Security
The National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management, or FARM Program, is the U.S. dairy’s on-farm national social responsibility program. One of its important parts is on-farm biosecurity. Emily Yeiser-Stepp, executive director of the National Dairy FARM Program, says biosecurity is more important than ever after the recent outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in dairy cattle herds
NMPF’s Doud Discusses HPAI, FMMO Modernization
NMPF President & CEO Gregg Doud discusses dairy’s response to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), the path forward for Federal Milk Marketing Order Modernization through an approach that puts farmers first, and opportunities for dairy in global markets. Doud spoke in an interview with the Agriculture of America podcast.
NMPF, IDFA Concerned with Final WIC Rule Reducing Access to Dairy
The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) expressed disappointment in the final rule released today to update the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which maintained the proposed rule’s cuts to dairy in the WIC food packages. WIC is a vital program ensuring that pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and children have access to key nutrients that may be lacking in their diets, so decreasing the amount of dairy decreases the nutrients they are accessing through it.
“NMPF is disturbed by the decision to reduce access to the essential nutrients dairy adds to the diet,” said Gregg Doud, NMPF president and CEO. “Nutrition science demonstrates that dairy products like milk, yogurt and cheese are especially important for women, infants, and children; meanwhile, nearly 90% of Americans don’t meet the number of dairy servings recommended by the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This rule works against the WIC Program’s goal of ensuring all Americans have consistent and equitable access to healthy, safe, and affordable foods.”
Milk, cheese, and yogurt are three of the five top redeemed items through WIC. They also provide three of the four nutrients of public health concern identified in the 2020 guidelines.
“At a time of rising food costs, it‘s important to focus on increasing access to a wide variety of healthful, nutrient-dense, and affordable foods, including dairy products,” Doud said. “It’s disappointing that the final rule limits WIC family purchasing power for nutritious dairy foods.”
While disappointed in the cuts to the dairy allotments in the WIC packages, NMPF and IDFA appreciate the rule’s requirement that states offer lactose-free milk and a wider selection of product package sizes. These changes will help make dairy products more accessible for all WIC participants.
Speaking for IDFA, President and CEO Michael Dykes, D.V.M., said, “This final rule cuts the amount of milk that can be purchased by up to 3 gallons per family per month at a time of high food prices, stubborn inflation, and rising hunger rates, and harms nutrition security by disregarding the Dietary Guidelines’ findings that dairy items in the WIC food package are under-consumed. IDFA has polled WIC participants and 35% say they will need to use non-WIC funds to cover purchases of milk and dairy due to these cuts. Another 33% say the cuts will make their shopping for milk and dairy products harder. Some may decide not to reenroll in WIC because of the cuts. Partners like state WIC agencies, local health clinics, and anti-hunger groups will be forced to explain USDA’s WIC cuts to 6 million low-income mothers and children under the age of five.
“We do, however, recognize and appreciate how the final rule authorizes purchases of lactose-free milk and offers new flexibilities for yogurt and cheese that make it easier for WIC participants to access nutritious dairy foods that meet their family’s dietary needs. For example, IDFA has worked for many years to create flexibility what allows WIC participants to swap a portion of their milk allotment for reasonably sized portions of yogurt (such as 4 oz., 5.3 oz., and 6 oz. cups) totaling up to 32 ounces, rather than one 32-ounce tub. With that change in place, WIC participants will have greater access to a nutrient-dense food that helps participants meet the program’s nutrient recommendations. We look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with USDA to encourage states to fully utilize the rule’s provisions that expand options for yogurt and cheese, and to mitigate the cuts to milk benefits,” said Dykes.
CWT Assists with 440,00 Pounds of Dairy Product Export Sales
ARLINGTON, VA – Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) member cooperatives accepted four offers of export assistance from CWT that helped them capture sales contracts for 405,000 pounds (180 MT) of American-type cheese and 35,000 pounds (20 MT) of cream cheese. The product is going to customers in Asia, Middle East-North Africa and Oceania, and will be delivered from April through June 2024.
CWT-assisted member cooperative year-to-date export sales total 30.8 million pounds of American-type cheeses, 309,000 pounds of butter (82% milkfat), 617,000 pounds of anhydrous milkfat, 7.9 million pounds of whole milk powder and 3.1 million pounds of cream cheese. The products are going to 24 countries in five regions. These sales are the equivalent of 390.4 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis.
Assisting CWT members through the Export Assistance program positively affects all U.S. dairy farmers and cooperatives by fostering the competitiveness of U.S. dairy products in the global marketplace and helping member cooperatives gain and maintain world market share for U.S. dairy products. As a result, the program has helped significantly expand the total demand for U.S. dairy products and the demand for U.S. farm milk that produces those products.
The amounts of dairy products and related milk volumes reflect current contracts for delivery, not completed export volumes. CWT pays export assistance to the bidders only when export and delivery of the product is verified by required documentation.
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The Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) Export Assistance program is funded by voluntary contributions from dairy cooperatives and individual dairy farmers. The money raised by their investment is being used to strengthen and stabilize the dairy farmers’ milk prices and margins.
Economists Confident in NMPF Milk-Pricing Plan
The briefs are in, and now it’s up to USDA to consider the arguments and craft a proposed modernization for Federal Milk Marketing Orders, which govern milk pricing. NMPF economists Peter Vitaliano and Stephen Cain said they’re confident in the strength of NMPF’s proposals in a Dairy Defined Podcast released today.
“If you were to read through our brief, I think you’d be struck by the fact that it is an integrated, well-reasoned, constructive proposal for doing some long overdue maintenance on the federal order program to position it for many more years of effective operation,” said Vitaliano, vice president for economic policy and market research at NMPF. “We’re very confident that when we see what USDA comes up with in a recommended decision in early July, we’re very confident that we’ve made a good enough case, that a lot of it will be adopted.”
More on NMPF’s federal order efforts can be found on nmpf.org. The Dairy Defined podcast, you can find and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify under the podcast name “Dairy Defined.”
Pushing for Lower Tariffs Worldwide
By Jaime Castaneda, Executive Vice President, Policy Development & Strategy, National Milk Producers Federation
Exports are critical to America’s dairy farmers and processors. Last year, the American dairy industry exported $8.1 billion in dairy products, roughly 17% of total U.S. milk production. That’s the second-best year on record, falling just short of 2022.
As global demand for high-quality and sustainably-produced dairy products will grow, the U.S. dairy industry must keep exports expanding to thrive today and over the long term. To help encourage that, and in the absence of efforts by the U.S. government to secure new market openings, the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) have taken the initiative to drive forward projects to pursue Most-Favored Nation (MFN) tariff reductions in multiple key export markets.
U.S. dairy’s quarter-century of export expansion hasn’t been by chance. The strong commitment from U.S. dairy producers and manufacturers to investing in painstakingly growing international sales, coupled with multiple trade agreements that opened the door for that growth to occur, are key drivers of the trend. Unfortunately, in recent years, anti-trade rhetoric has gained momentum from politicians on both sides of the aisle. Meanwhile, major competitors — namely in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand — have successfully negotiated new market access, advantaging their domestic producers through lower tariff rates and favorable trading conditions. The result is that U.S. producers are increasingly at a disadvantage in several key markets, including China and most countries in Southeast Asia.
MFN tariffs are tariff rates that one country applies to imports from all trading partners that are members of the World Trade Organization. Importantly, MFN tariffs do not apply to products that benefit from even lower rates due to preferential trade agreements, such as a free trade agreement or customs union.
Not content to yield key markets to trade competitors, NMPF and USDEC launched a formal initiative in 2014 to lower duties on U.S. dairy exports in China. Following years of engagement, that resulted in a tariff cut on U.S. cheese exports. A few years later in 2019, NMPF and USDEC’s efforts scored another breakthrough by securing tariff reductions on a variety of exported dairy products into Vietnam.
Halfway around the globe, NMPF and USDEC tallied a small victory in March by successfully petitioning the United Kingdom government to eliminate its 6% tariff on fat-filled milk powder for at least two years.
NMPF and USDEC are continuing to pursue MFN tariff cuts in other key markets around the globe as well, with an emphasis on the growing Asian region, even as government initiative is lacking.
For example, the Philippines is a sizable dairy importer, using those inputs in the Philippine food processing and food service sectors. NMPF and USDEC have impressed upon the Philippine government the advantages of diversifying its dairy supply chains further and are petitioning for MFN tariff reductions for a variety of products, including cheese, lactose, and milk powder.
Although these initiatives by NMPF and USDEC cannot fully replace government negotiation of new trade agreements, efforts to drive down tariffs in these countries represent just a few examples of the markets that NMPF and USDEC are prioritizing as they continue to fight for fair opportunities for U.S. dairy producers and companies to compete in the global market.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on April 4, 2024.
FARM Prepares for Workforce Development Updates, Launches Sustainability Resource
The National Dairy FARM Program is preparing for version updates and new resources across multiple program areas. The FARM Workforce Development (WFD) Program made strides in March toward its evaluation tool Version 2 updates, and the FARM Environmental Stewardship (ES) Program launched a new database for sustainability resources.
The NMPF Board of Directors in March approved minor adjustments to the FARM WFD evaluation tool. The evaluation is restructured to better group questions of similar themes and contains seven additional questions to further strengthen the evaluation. The updated evaluation, FARM WFD Version 2, will launch July 1. FARM will offer updated trainings and resources for FARM evaluators and farmers who participate in the program.
The voluntary FARM WFD evaluation addresses best management practices that can enhance HR and safety management. Dairy cooperatives and processors can use the program to provide customer assurances around farm-level labor topics.
FARM ES published a comprehensive database of funding opportunities and sustainability resources for dairy producers. It was developed with support from SCS Consulting and is available for free on the FARM Program website. The library contains financial resources, including grants, cost-share, loan programs and other incentives.
Users can navigate through government, nonprofit, extension, state planning tools and other resources via filters by state, level of funding assistance, type of assistance, etc. The FARM Program will continue to incorporate new features throughout the year.
NMPF Presses USTR on Trade Barriers, New Markets
The U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) annual National Trade Estimate (NTE) report released Mar. 29 highlights several trade barrier and market access priorities that NMPF and USDEC have pointed out to the agency.
In Oct. 23 comments submitted to USTR as it developed the document, NMPF and USDEC detailed how the United States’ ongoing lack of new tariff-reducing trade agreements and uneven enforcement of existing agreements has put the U.S. dairy industry at a competitive disadvantage. The comments also summarized country-specific barriers that governments around the world are using to impede U.S. dairy exports.
Several of those nontariff barrier concerns were captured in the trade estimate as priorities for USTR, including:
- Canada’s trade-restrictive administration of its U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement dairy tariff-rate-quotas,
- Resolving Egypt’s protectionist and inconsistent Halal requirements,
- Finding a solution for Indonesia’s facility registration delays,
- Complex EU regulatory requirements that risk clogging trade flows.
NMPF Welcomes House Ag Labor Working Group Final Report, Calls for Legislative Action
NMPF lauded the House Agriculture Committee’s March 7 release of its bipartisan Agriculture Labor Working Group’s final report. The final recommendations represent the culmination of nearly nine months of discussions among working group members and stakeholders, including NMPF.
NMPF specifically commended working group members for unanimously supporting opening the H-2A agricultural visa program to dairy farmers and other year-round employers. NMPF staff had previously briefed the working group on dairy’s workforce needs and served as the dairy industry policy resource during the drafting of the group’s initial report, which was released last November.
“We commend the House Agriculture Committee and its Ag Labor Working Group for forging ahead and reaching agreement on recommendations to make badly needed reforms to our nation’s H-2A agricultural visa program,” said NMPF president and CEO Gregg Doud in a statement. “We are especially grateful for the working group’s unanimous support for allowing dairy farmers and other year-round employers long-sought access to the program.”.
Election-year dynamics create a difficult climate for ag labor legislation, but NMPF hopes that the bipartisan consensus reached in the final report can help set the table for any possible opportunity to address dairy’s workforce concerns of accessing H-2A and protecting dairy’s current workers and their families.
“Dairy’s workforce needs remain dire, and we urge Congress to heed the Ag Labor Working Group’s strong recommendation,” said Doud.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman GT Thompson, R-PA, and Ranking Member David Scott, D-GA, formally launched the Agriculture Labor Working Group last June. Thompson and Scott deputized committee members Reps. Rick Crawford, R-AR, and Don Davis, D-NC, to spearhead the working group.
“Again, thanks to the committee and to its leadership, Chairman GT Thompson, R-PA, and Ranking Member David Scott, D-GA, as well as Working Group co-chairs Reps. Rick Crawford, R-AR, and Don Davis, D-NC, for their bipartisan leadership in this important and timely effort,” said Doud.
NMPF Shapes Supply Chain Policies
The House passed the bipartisan Ocean Shipping Reform Implementation Act of 2023, a key NMF trade-policy priority, on Mar. 21 by unanimous consent.
Led by Reps. Dusty Johnson, R-SD, and John Garamendi, D-CA, the legislation would update supply chain data standards, establish reciprocal trade as part of the Federal Maritime Commission’s mission in enforcing the Shipping Act, and introduce a formal process to report complaints against certain shipping exchanges. NMPF and USDEC endorsed the legislation to help provide greater supply chain transparency and reliability for dairy exporters.
The bill complements the Federal Maritime Commission’s Feb. 23 publication of its final rule on detention and demurrage billing practices, which incorporates several recommendations made by NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC).
As an important part of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA) implementation – which NMPF championed – the final rule requires common carriers and marine terminal operators to:
- Include specific minimum information on demurrage and detention invoices;
- Outline certain detention and demurrage billing practices, such as determination of which parties may appropriately be billed for demurrage or detention charges; and
- Set timeframes for issuing invoices.
CWT Task Force Assesses Member Export Capabilities
The task force of farmers and cooperative leaders leading the initiative to renew Cooperatives Working Together in late March issued a survey to NMPF’s members seeking data about the products they manufacture, and also feedback on the value of CWT to their organization and the broader dairy community.
The task force, formed earlier this year to consider how the CWT program should evolve in the future to better meet the needs of its members, is generating ideas to present a series of potential extensions of CWT’s current operations to the NMPF Board of Directors for approval. The survey sent to NMPF cooperatives CEOs seeks information about the type and volume of products manufactured by the membership. The resulting data will be analyzed to assess the potential for expanding the range of products that CWT supports.
Other ideas for CWT’s future activities include expanding the demand for new and different products in foreign markets and improving the collective logistics efficiencies of members’ supply chain processes. The task force will continue to meet virtually to refine these concepts and propose detailed proposals to the NMPF Board.
March CWT-Assisted Export Sales Total 9.5 Million Pounds
CWT member cooperatives secured over 70 contracts in March, adding 9.5 million pounds of product to CWT-assisted sales in 2024. In milk equivalent, this is equal to 96.9 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis. These products will go to customers in Asia, Central America, the Caribbean, Middle East-North Africa, Oceania and South America and will be shipped from March through August 2024.
Exporting dairy products is critical to the viability of dairy farmers and their cooperatives across the country. Whether or not a cooperative is actively engaged in exporting cheese, butter, anhydrous milkfat, cream cheese, or whole milk powder, moving products into world markets is essential. CWT provides a means to move domestic dairy products to overseas markets by helping to overcome U.S. dairy’s trade disadvantages.
The amounts of dairy products and related milk volumes reflect current contracts for delivery, not completed export volumes. CWT will pay export assistance to the bidders only when export and delivery of the product is verified by the submission of the required documentation.
