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NMPF’s Galen on Farm Bill Progress
NMPF Senior Vice President Chris Galen discusses the state of play in the upcoming farm bill on Dairy Radio Now. Current spending debates are slowing progress on the five-year reauthorization of USDA programs, which include nutrition assistance and commodity payments. The current law expires Sept. 30 — because many commodity programs, including dairy, run on a calendar-year basis, any threat of near-term disruption is limited, Galen said.
NMPF’s Detlefsen on the Scourge of Lab-Based Milk Imposters
NMPF Chief Counsel Clay Detlefsen discusses the even more urgent need for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to enforce beverage standards of identity as lab-based milk imposters try to use dairy terms in the marketplace. “Milk has got 13 essential nutrients. It’s got 400 different fatty acids. It’s got two categories of proteins, casein and whey, numerous micronutrients,” he said. “You cannot replicate that in a laboratory or elsewhere. I mean milk is milk. It’s natural, and it’s good for you. And you can’t duplicate that in the lab.” Detlefsen spoke in an interview with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters.
CWT Assists with 3.1 Million Pounds of Dairy Product Export Sales
ARLINGTON, VA – Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) member cooperatives accepted 18 offers of export assistance from CWT that helped them capture sales contracts for 2.8 million pounds (1,300 MT) of American-type cheese and 225,000 pounds (102 MT) of cream cheese. The product is going to customers in Asia, Central America and the Caribbean, and will be delivered from July through December 2023.
CWT-assisted member cooperative year-to-date export sales total 27.3 million pounds of American-type cheeses, 765,000 pounds of butter (82% milkfat), 24,000 pounds of anhydrous milkfat, 31.2 million pounds of whole milk powder and 5.4 million pounds of cream cheese. The products are going to 23 countries in five regions. These sales are the equivalent of 540.2 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.
Dairy Better Benefits Children through Science-Based Federal Food Policies
The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act may have its best chance yet of passing Congress this year. But the potential return of whole and 2% percent options to school lunch menus is only one piece of the evolution of dairy’s role in federal nutrition policies, as two NMPF experts say in a Dairy Defined podcast released today.
“We’re in a pretty exciting spot right now for dairy and nutrition,” said Miquela Hanselman, NMPF’s manager for regulatory affairs. “National Milk is working with other dairy organizations to kind of make sure that we have all of our bases covered.”
Hanselman is NMPF’s point person on the upcoming, twice-a-decade revision to the dietary guidelines used in federal nutrition programs, due in 2025. She’s joined in the podcast by Senior Director for Government Relations Claudia Larson, who is advocating for whole milk legislation in Congress. Evolving science – and attitudes – toward the benefits of whole milk in children’s diets is building momentum for expanded milk options in federal programs.
“The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act expands the varieties of healthy milk options schools can choose to serve in meal programs, and we see this as a commons-sense approach for addressing nutrition insecurity among our nation’s youth,” she said. “Children and adolescents do not meet their daily dairy intake recommendations, and this is a nutrition problem for our kids because dairy plays an unparalleled role in delivering the vital nutrients they need to grow and thrive.”
NMPF has a call to action urging lawmakers to support the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act here. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Broadcast outlets may use the MP3 file below. Please attribute information to NMPF.
NMPF Applauds Xochitl Torres Small’s Confirmation as Deputy Agriculture Secretary
From NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern:
“On behalf of America’s dairy farmers and their cooperatives, we congratulate Xochitl Torres Small on her Senate confirmation as Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. Her rich family heritage in agriculture, as well as her career in public service in Congress and at USDA, will bring valuable perspective to the position, and we know she will bring great insight and energy to her new role. We look forward to continuing our work together to tackle the many pressing issues that affect agriculture and our rural communities.”
Whole Milk Law Can Improve Child Nutrition
By Claudia Larson, Senior Director of Government Relations, NMPF
A bipartisan measure to expand the healthy milk varieties schools can choose to serve has a chance to pass Congress.
The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which would return whole and 2% milk to school lunch menus, has been introduced in the past. But with a growing tide of science to back up its benefits, this year the legislation has advanced farther than ever before, with a possible House floor vote as early as this month. House Agriculture Committee Chair GT Thompson, R-PA, Representative Kim Schrier, D-WA, and Senators Roger Marshall, R-KS, and Peter Welch, D-VA, are leading the effort.
Allowing schools to serve 2% and whole milk is a commonsense solution to a national child nutrition problem. No other food delivers the same rich and unique nutrition package as milk, which provides 13 essential nutrients, including three of the four public health concerns. Milk plays an especially significant role in providing the nutrition critical for childhood health and development. Milk is the number one source of protein for kids 2 to 11, serves as the top source of calcium, potassium, phosphorus, and vitamin D for children ages 2 to 18, and provides seven of the 14 nutrients the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for optimal brain development.
But the benefits continue throughout a child’s education. Most kids and adolescents do not meet daily dairy intake recommendations, according to the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. That’s a problem. When kids don’t drink milk, they don’t consume the nutrients they need to grow and thrive.
The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act provides an answer. We know that school meals are an important source of milk for kids and adolescents — they provide 77% of total daily dairy milk consumption for low-income children ages 5 to 18. We also know that 2% and whole milk are the most popular milk varieties sold in stores, and we know that kids are more likely to drink milk when we provide choices they prefer. The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act expands the milk options available for schools to serve in the school meal nutrition programs to also include the most popular milk varieties, 2% and whole milk. This legislation would not require schools to serve 2% and whole milk, but it gives them the choice. And many would undoubtedly take it since kids will prefer the same milk they drink at home.
A growing body of science shows that dairy foods at all fat levels have a neutral or positive effect on health outcomes, ranging from heart disease to obesity and diabetes. More specific to children’s health, several recent studies (including systematic reviews and meta-analyses) found that high milkfat consumption was associated with lower childhood obesity, concluding that recommending lower-fat milk versions might not lower the risk of childhood obesity.
The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act is picking up momentum in both congressional chambers. NMPF has been working to build bipartisan support for the measure, including launching an advocacy campaign to connect individuals with their elected officials to voice their opinion. If you’d like your voice to be heard, our call-to-action found at https://www.nmpf.org/take-action/ offers a way to let your representative in Congress know this bill needs to become law.
Given the broad and growing support for the legislation, we are hopeful it will continue to advance, so we can see real progress toward improving children’s nutritional intake by increasing the healthy milk options available to schools.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on July 10, 2023.
Need for Lab-Based Beverage Action as Clear as a Milk Label
It’s the difference between
“Water, animal-free whey protein (from fermentation), sunflower oil, sugar, less than 1% of: vitamin A, vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin), vitamin D2, riboflavin, citrus fiber, salt, dipotassium phosphate, acacia, gellan gum, mixed tocopherols (antioxidant), calcium potassium phosphate citrate, natural flavor,” …
and this:
We’ve warned FDA of the problems resulting from this fabrication, and we hope our warning doesn’t fall on deaf ears. After more than four decades of plant-based imposters using dairy terms that violate the agency’s Standard of Identity for milk, lab-based fermenters of single dairy proteins are trying to mislead consumers in the exact same way – by creating a false impression that their slurries of highly processed ingredients are equivalent to dairy.
They’re not. And consumers shouldn’t be led to believe otherwise.
In a letter to FDA asking the agency to take action against the brand Bored Cow, which is marketing its beverage as “animal-free dairy milk” because it uses a single fermented whey protein (real milk has dozens of protein variants and literally hundreds of different fatty acids), the National Milk Producers Federation notes that “it is baseless, preposterous and absurd” to call such a product milk.
“In the interest of public health, the misleading labeling charade must end before it gets out of hand,” NMPF writes. “FDA must act, and must do so now.”
Will it? While FDA’s proposed guidance on the naming of plant-based beverages finally admits a problem, the lab-based conundrum shows how its purported solution – allowing imitators to use the term “milk” if they disclose nutritional differences – falls short. It’s not just about the limited nutrition knowledge we have. It’s about the substance itself, and the complex interaction among naturally-occurring ingredients that any honest marketer, scientist or regulator knows we don’t fully understand. That humility, and the need to protect against consumer confusion that’s been acknowledged by the last three FDA commissioners, is more than enough reason to take action now.
Because without it, the imposters will proliferate, the headaches will grow, and the marketplace will only become less transparent, in yet another abandonment of FDA’s mission to protect consumers. FDA must enforce its Standard of Identity rules on lab-based dairy labeling now. The need is as basic as the ingredient listing on a bottle of milk. FDA can’t let that clear principle be dragged through the mud – or whatever substances these fake “milks” are made of.
IDF World Dairy Summit Comes at a Great Time
The International Dairy Federation’s World Dairy Summit will be in the United States this year. Shawna Morris, senior vice president of trade policy for the National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council, says the summit is coming to the U.S. at a good time. “We had a record year in exports last year, we’re very well-poised to continue to grow in the years to come, and we’re leading on so many of the sustainability fronts that are such an increasing focus for international markets,” she said.
June CWT-Assisted Dairy Export Sales Total 12.6 Million Pounds
CWT member cooperatives secured 51 contracts in March, adding 4.7 million pounds of American-type cheeses, 220,000 pounds of butter, 6.6 million pounds of whole milk powder, 22,000 pounds of anhydrous milkfat and 1.1 million pounds of cream cheese to CWT-assisted sales in 2023. In milk equivalent, this is equal to 105.7 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis. These products will go to customers in Asia, Oceania, South America, Central America, the Caribbean and Middle East-North Africa, and will be shipped from June through December 2023.
CWT-assisted 2023 dairy product sales contracts year-to-date total 61.7 million pounds of American-type cheese, 815,000 pounds of butter, 24,000 pounds of anhydrous milkfat, 5.2 million pounds of cream cheese and 31.2 million pounds of whole milk powder. This brings the total milk equivalent for the year to 513.4 million pounds on a milkfat basis.
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.
NMPF Strengthens Relationship with Japanese Dairy Organization
NMPF’s Jaime Castaneda joined a delegation of U.S. dairy farmers and U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) staff who traveled to Japan to sign a “Letter of Friendship” with JA-Zenchu, Japan’s Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives.
The letter, similar to ones NMPF has signed with groups in Latin America, pledges to address the common difficulties that dairy farmers in both countries are facing. Specifically, the two groups promised to collaborate on “dairy-friendly policies at international forums, share information and knowledge on relevant issues and continue to strengthen ties between the two countries for the good of the dairy farmers” represented.
While in Japan, Castaneda and the delegation met with Japanese dairy farmers and agricultural leaders to learn more about the unique issues they are facing and toured Megmilk Snow Brand’s cheese plant.
NMPF Advances UK and Asian Tariff-Reduction Projects
NMPF’s Tony Rice joined the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection in a trip to the United Kingdom June 11-16 to help promote U.S.-UK dairy trade.
Rice met with U.S. and UK government officials to discuss the United Kingdom’s proposed new dairy health certificate approach and to push for the United Kingdom to unilaterally reduce its World Trade Organization Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariffs for a range of dairy imports.
The trip followed a June 7 letter signed by NMPF and other leading agricultural organizations calling on Congress to support the Undertaking Negotiations on Investment and Trade for Economic Dynamism (UNITED) Act – a bipartisan bill in both chambers that would grant the administration trade promotion authority to specifically negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement with the United Kingdom.
NMPF’s Jaime Castaneda was in Thailand for meetings June 19-23 to advance two MFN dairy tariff reduction projects in Thailand and in neighboring Indonesia. Castaneda also met with Thai officials to discuss the government’s handling of EU demands to restrict common cheese names like “parmesan.”
Castaneda also met with Thai dairy importers to discuss how limited sourcing choice is affecting their businesses and how they could support MFN tariff-reduction efforts to give them more options. Additional meetings with Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Bangkok focused on common cheese name restrictions. The Thai government plans to resume free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union in September.
