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CWT Assists with 3.6 Million Pounds of Dairy Product Export Sales

Posted on by Khadija Gibson-White

ARLINGTON, VA – Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) member cooperatives accepted 39 offers of export assistance from CWT that helped them capture sales contracts for 3.2 pounds million (1,500 MT) of American-type cheese and 353,000 pounds (160 MT) of whole milk powder. The product is going to customers in Asia, Central America, the Caribbean and Middle East-North Africa, and will be delivered from January through July 2024.

CWT-assisted member cooperative year-to-date export sales total 7.2 million pounds of American-type cheeses, 6.6 million pounds of whole milk powder and 231,000 pounds of cream cheese. The products are going to 10 countries in four regions. These sales are the equivalent of 116.1 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis. Over the last 12 months, CWT assisted sales are the equivalent of 918.9 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 US 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 dairy farmers’ milk prices and margins.

Whole and Lactose-Free Milk Shine Bright

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

By Alan Bjerga, Executive Vice President, Communications & Industry Relations, NMPF

This is shaping up to be an exciting year for both whole and lactose-free milk, two growing segments of fluid milk consumption that are poised for further gains in grocery aisles as well as Washington, D.C. policy circles.

First, the facts: Even as fluid milk continues its decades-long challenge of eroded consumption as beverage markets diversify and consumer preference shifts to other forms of dairy, both whole milk and lactose-free varieties are bucking that trend. According to data from Circana Inc., which tracks retail sales, whole milk sales rose slightly (up 8 million gallons, or 0.6%) in 2023 over 2022. Because overall fluid sales declined, whole milk now makes up 45.4% of total fluid volume sold and is easily the most popular variety.

Lactose-free milk, meanwhile, reached a milestone. By climbing 6.7% to 239.2 million gallons last year, it surpassed the sales volume of almond beverages, by far the most popular plant-based milk alternative beverage. Almond’s annual decline of 9.8% is a big part of an overall consumer move away from plant-based alternatives, which have now seen two straight years of sales volume drops. Buyers are emphatically rejecting years of misleading claims that these beverages are a worthy substitute to dairy.

What’s next?

The National Milk Producers Federation is pushing for full congressional passage of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House in December and stands good prospects of passage in the Senate — if the right legislative vehicle can be found in a jam-packed election year. Bringing whole and 2% milk back to school meal menus is a great way to improve the nutrition of the next generation of milk drinkers. We have a call to action on our website urging senators to take up the bill.

Lactose-free milk is becoming the industry’s spearhead in ensuring equitable access to milk across diverse populations in federal nutrition programs. It is simply asinine federal policy to do what some vegan activists are proposing — increase access in federal programs to plant-based beverages that are both nutritionally inferior and now falling out of favor with consumers — when a beverage exists that circumvents lactose intolerance and offers all of milk’s benefits because it is, after all, milk. You will be hearing more about this in upcoming months as we strive to make 2024 a year when people become more broadly aware of just how critical lactose-free milk can be for effective and fair nutritional choices.

In what’s been a challenging time for the industry, what can the success of whole and lactose-free milk tell us? It shows that, for all the proliferation of alternatives, consumers like milk that’s most like milk, in taste and composition. They also like milk that’s accessible for everyone who wants its benefits. Quality and diversity are promising building blocks for a prosperous future. That’s plentiful in dairy, and this year, what consumers are choosing also can inform better federal policy.

This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on Jan. 18, 2024.

NMPF’s Bleiberg Explains Federal Funding Process to Avert Government Shutdown

Posted on by Chris Galen

NMPF’s Paul Bleiberg tells Dairy Radio Now listeners about the latest developments in efforts on Capitol Hill to fund the government in 2024 before certain agencies run out of money.  He also explains the impact of the funding fight on efforts to pass a new Farm Bill in the spring months, before time runs out as the political focus shifts to the fall election campaign.

 

Milk’s Lead Rises as Plant-Based Beverages Sink

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The final numbers are in, and they confirm what we’ve anticipated all year. In 2023, consumers emphatically turned away from plant-based beverages at an accelerating rate that caused the category to lose market share to milk, where whole milk and lactose-free varieties are thriving and surpassing their competitors.

The numbers give even more reason to put a stake in all that overprocessed hype – and to push even harder for integrity in labeling beverages that are being abandoned by consumers tired of inferior alternatives to dairy.

With full year data now available from Circana Inc., which tracks grocery-store spending, plant-based beverage consumption in 2023 fell 6.6 percent to 337.7 million gallons. It’s the second straight year of declines and the lowest consumption since 2019.

Sales volumes for almond drinks, the biggest plant-based category, fell 10 percent, and the soy beverages that vegan activists weirdly want in school lunches declined 8 percent. Even the once-Next-Big-Thing, oats, only rose 1.4 percent last year.

Sorry, Oatly – the froth has left your latte, and all that’s left is the drain.

Meanwhile, fluid milk – the real kind – keeps chugging away. To be fair, like plant-based, its consumption also declined, and like plant-based, its sales volume number starts with a 3. However, that 3.137 is followed by the word billion – not million, which is where plant-based is stuck – and the drop was 2.7 percent, less than half the rate of decline for plant-based beverages. That means fluid milk last year lengthened its lead over plant-based. In 2022, fluid milk had 89.9 percent of the pie. In 2023, it rose to 90.3 percent.

Beyond the overall number, fluid milk had more good news. Sales of whole milk, the most popular variety (and the one we need back in schools), rose last year, and lactose-free milk – the one tailor-made for people with dairy sensitivities – jumped 6.7 percent to 239.2 million gallons. With that, lactose-free milk surpassed almonds; it’s now a bigger category on its own than any plant-based alternative.

(You’ll hear a lot about that in the next year. We’ll make certain of it.)

The idea that milk was losing market share because consumers were turning to plant-based alternatives was always off-base. Now, it’s just a lie. And the decline of plant-based beverage isn’t likely to be an aberration: Once the initial hype is gone, and the sustainability claims are debunked, and the nutrition fallacies are exposed, what, exactly, does over-processed sugar water have going for it?

Oh, right, their misleading labels.

For now.

CWT Assists with 10.4 Million Pounds of Dairy Product Export Sales

Posted on by Khadija Gibson-White
ARLINGTON, VA – Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) member cooperatives accepted 32 offers of export assistance from CWT that helped them capture sales contracts for 3.9 million pounds (1,800 MT) of American-type cheese, 6.2 million pounds (2,800 MT) of whole milk powder and 231,000 pounds (100 MT) of cream cheese. The product is going to customers in Asia, Central America, the Caribbean, Middle East-North Africa and South America, and will be delivered from January through July 2024.

CWT-assisted member cooperative year-to-date export sales total 3.9 million pounds of American-type cheeses, 6.2 million pounds of whole milk powder and 231,000 pounds of cream cheese. The products are going to seven countries in four regions. These sales are the equivalent of 83.6 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis. Over the last 12 months, CWT assisted sales are the equivalent of 973.7 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 US 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.

 

###

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 dairy farmers’ milk prices and margins.

 

NMPF Leads China Letter Urging Trade Tension De-escalation

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

NMPF signed and helped lead outreach for signatories on a Dec. 12 letter to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party that argued against escalating trade tensions with China.

In its report released shortly thereafter on fortifying the American economy to compete with China, the Committee refrained from calling for a complete repeal of China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status – a decision that would have serious repercussions for U.S. dairy farmers.

Since Congress first granted China PNTR status in 2000, Chinese demand for U.S. agricultural exports has rapidly grown. China now purchases 19% of America’s food and agriculture exports and is the third largest export destination for U.S. dairy products. The letter warns of the potential fallout from PNTR revocation, citing as an example Chinese retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural products after the U.S. imposition of Section 232 and 301 tariffs on Chinese goods. Those retaliatory tariffs led to a significant reduction in U.S. dairy exports to China.

While the final select committee report stops short of calling for outright revocation of China’s PNTR status, the recommendations urge Congress to move China to a “new tariff column” to decrease reliance on Chinese imports and develop U.S. leverage to address trade issues.

NMPF strongly opposes increased tariffs on Chinese imports that could invite additional retaliatory measures against U.S. dairy and agricultural exports – a message that NMPF continues to highlight on Capitol Hill as the select committee’s recommendations are considered for further action.

Iowa Dairy Farmers to Lead National Young Cooperators Program in 2024

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Iowa dairy farmers and Prairie Farms, Inc. member-owners Hannah and Matthew Lansing were elected by their peers to serve as chairpersons of the National Young Cooperators (YC) Program in 2024.

The pair will steer the program toward its mission by providing key information and making recommendations on topics and activities of interest to young dairy leaders, representing NMPF and the YC Program at events and meetings throughout the year and reporting progress to the NMPF Board of Directors.

Together with Hannah’s grandparents, Hannah and Matthew milk 1,100 cows and farm more than 5,000 acres at Blue Hyll Dairy in Clinton, IA. The Lansings say they are enthusiastic about the opportunity and look forward to “continuing to grow as individuals by learning from others and sharing ideas on how we can all work together to become better advocates for dairy while improving our operations,” Matthew Lansing said.

Ohio dairy farmer Karl Wedemeyer was elected to serve as vice chairperson Karl milks 200 Jerseys and farms 80 acres in partnership with his parents and brother at White Diamond Farm in La Rue, Ohio. He is a member-owner of Dairy Farmers of America, and currently serves on the cooperative’s area resolutions and corporate resolutions committees.

The National YC Program has provided training and leadership development opportunities to beginning dairy farmers for more than 70 years, with a mission to provide producers with the education, tools and resources they need to improve their leadership skills, profitability and resilience through year-round virtual and in-person programming. Click here to stay up to date on program activities.

NMPF Secures Bipartisan Support for House Feed Additive Legislation

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

NMPF built on its work to spur approval of enteric methane-reducing animal feed ingredients by securing bipartisan sponsors for the Innovative FEED Act in the House of Representatives. The House bill was introduced Dec. 7 by Representatives Greg Pence, R-IN, Kim Schrier, D-WA, Jim Baird, R-IN, and Angie Craig, D-MN.

Like its Senate counterpart, the House measure would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the ability to review and approve animal feed ingredients using the agency’s Food Additive Petition pathway. This approach would allow FDA to review animal feed additives, which are not drugs, in a more efficient manner that would preserve animal, human, and environmental safety. Doing so would better position U.S. dairy farmers to act quickly and proactively to reduce enteric methane emissions and maintain global competitiveness. Products like Elanco’s Bovaer, or 3-NOP, can reduce enteric methane emissions by as much as 30 percent, making them poised to play a key role in dairy’s voluntary, producer-led sustainability efforts once approved.

The Innovative FEED Act was adopted by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on June 15 by an overwhelming 19-2 vote. The House measure already has meaningful bipartisan support from members of the Energy & Commerce Committee, which oversees FDA-related policy. NMPF looks forward to working with its congressional champions and stakeholder partners to enact this bill into law early in 2024.

2023 CWT-Assisted Export Sales Totaled 107.7 Million Pounds as Category Volumes Rise

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

CWT-assisted dairy product sales contracts in 2023 totaled 58.4 million pounds of American-type cheese, 1.1 million pounds of butter, 46,000 pounds of anhydrous milkfat, 9.1 million pounds of cream cheese and 39.0 million pounds of whole milk powder. This brings the total milk equivalent for the year to 922.1 million pounds on a milkfat basis, equal to 107.7 million pounds on a product volume basis. Product destinations include Aisa, Central America, the Caribbean, Middle East-North Africa, Oceania and South America.

Apart from cheese, all CWT supported products increased sales volumes through the program in 2023. Notably, CWT-assisted butter sales rose 73% and whole milk powder gained 27%. CWT supported sales also reached more countries than the year before – helping more consumers around the world access high-quality, U.S. dairy products.

CWT member cooperatives secured 55 contracts in December, adding 12.4 million pounds of American-type cheeses, 20,000 pounds of anhydrous milkfat, and 827,000 pounds of cream cheese to CWT-assisted sales in 2023. In milk equivalent, this is equal to 121.3 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis. These products will go to customers in Asia, Middle East-North Africa, Oceania and South America and will be shipped from December 2023 through May 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.

November DMC Margin Barely Tops $9.50 for the First Time in 2023

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The November margin under the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program inched up $0.14/cwt from a month earlier to $9.58/cwt, marking its first time in 2023 above the maximum $9.50/cwt Tier 1 coverage level.

The monthly change was a product of modest price movements. The all-milk price rose $0.10/cwt to $21.70/cwt, while the DMC feed cost formula dropped $0.04/cwt to $12.12/cwt of milk. There was a bit more drama inside the DMC feed cost formula, with a $0.35/cwt increase in the soybean meal price factor slightly more than offset by a combined drop in the prices of corn and premium alfalfa hay. During the first ten months of this year, the average monthly change, plus or minus, in the margin was $1.22/cwt, the average monthly change in the all-milk price was $1.15/cwt and the average monthly change in the DMC feed cost was $0.37/cwt.

With one more month in to be reported for last year, the 2023 average margin is on track to average about $6.80/cwt, which would be the second-lowest margin for the DMC and its predecessor Margin Protection Program (MPP), just above 2021’s average DMC margin of $6.70/cwt. The end-of year futures prices indicated the margins would average about $8.60/cwt during January-September this year but improve during the fourth quarter to average about $9.10/cwt for the year.

Doud Takes Reins at NMPF

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

NMPF began its new year with a new President and Chief Executive Officer, as Gregg Doud succeeded outgoing leader Jim Mulhern on Jan. 1.

“As NMPF’s new president and CEO, I am duty-bound to defend this industry. And because of our farmer and co-op leadership and first-class staff, we defend it well,” Doud said in his first CEO’s Corner, published yesterday. “2024 is also exciting because of the great potential we in dairy have to take the initiative. We can attack as well as defend. 2024 is going to be a great year for this industry. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share in the leadership of this journey.”

Doud has served in numerous leadership roles in trade association and government work in his more than 30-year career in agricultural policy and economics, most recently at Aimpoint Research, a global intelligence firm specializing in agriculture and food. From 2018 to 2021 he served as Chief Agricultural Negotiator for the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative, appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate, where he led numerous successful efforts to create a fair, prosperous environment for U.S. agricultural exports, including the U.S.-China “Phase One” agreement and the USMCA negotiations.

Before that role, he served as president of the Commodity Markets Council, a trade association for commodities exchanges and industry counterparts; as senior professional staff on the Senate Agriculture Committee; and as chief economist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, among other roles.

Mulhern leaves NMPF with the organization spearheading a once-a-generation update of federal milk marketing orders; with dairy farmers benefiting from a comprehensive federal safety net that features a suite of risk-management programs tailored to farms in all sizes and regions; agriculture-leading initiatives on sustainability and animal care; and undeniable progress in creating a more transparent marketplace for consumers amid the proliferation of plant-based dairy imposters, among other accomplishments.