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Cooperative Spirit Promotes Dairy’s Progress

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

October is significant in the NMPF calendar. Many years, including this one, it features our annual meeting, when dairy farmers gather to share a common voice on important policies and represent the best practices and advances this industry has to offer. It’s also National Co-op Month, a time dear to our own hearts as the nationwide federation of dairy cooperatives. The principles of self-help and pursuit of common goals that cooperatives embody are core values of our organization, ideals we see lived by our members every day.

A very public example of how co-op leadership combined with sound public policy can advance dairy and serve broader communities came in September, as NMPF members received a significant portion of USDA’s $2.8 billion in funding for 70 projects in the first round of awards under the department’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative. California Dairies Inc., Dairy Farmers of America, Land O’Lakes, and the Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association are leading or partnering on specific projects that may receive up to $245 million in funding that will further industry goals on greenhouse gas emissions reductions, optimal resource use and sustainability.

These member cooperatives, along with others in dairy who are building a better future through climate-smart agriculture projects, should be commended for taking a proactive approach to continuing dairy’s leadership within all agriculture. Following on the heels of the Inflation Reduction Act — which promises more opportunities for solutions that create both a more sustainable planet and a sustainable future for many dairy farms — it’s a powerful investment, and a significant signal from USDA that co-ops have the tools to succeed in meeting 21st century challenges.

Speaking of challenges … anyone who has followed industry discussions since the 2020 pandemic knows of the need to modernize the Federal Milk Marketing Order system, as well as NMPF’s leadership in crafting a plan that can gain broad-based support from farmers across the country. After more than a year of examination of important and relevant issues by our Economic Policy Committee, along with a task force created to craft consensus on critical topics, and wide-ranging discussions with our leadership and throughout the industry, we’ve gained important insights into what changes are critical and which ones need extra attention to get right.

For example: Any solution that works for farmers and the entire industry needs to address FMMOs comprehensively. Milk-pricing formulas, to name one area, need to reflect milk component composition in 2022 – not the lower levels assumed by the industry experts of nearly a quarter century ago. Pricing formulas also should better reflect what dairy products are being sold in 2022 so that price reporting covers the right markets, in the right proportion for a fair price. At the same time, addressing make-allowances — which haven’t been adjusted in nearly 15 years and don’t fully reflect present-day manufacturing costs — is important.

It’s also clear that changes made to FMMOs must be implemented gradually enough to keep markets calm. Most importantly, solutions need broad buy-in from farmers first, closely followed by everyone else. Proposals that have advanced from our task force are ones that had strong support among many of the experts who crafted them, ensuring that a firm consensus stands behind our proposals.

To some, that may slow down progress; but proposed progress that ends up being eventually rejected leaves everyone back where they started. Our goal is to move forward and forge lasting solutions work for all regions of the country, all sizes of farms, and perspectives from across dairy.

We’ve come a long way toward meeting that goal, in no small part due to the ethic that we, as a federation of cooperatives, follow of making sure that our efforts benefit all. But our work is far from over: Any plan we advance will need to go before a USDA-directed federal order hearing – we’re aiming for next year – that would be subject to a producer vote on a modernized FMMO system, if USDA approves a plan. In the meantime, as our members create consensus, we’re also consulting with other farmer groups, other industry organizations, and experts from across dairy to make sure our proposal addresses widely shared concerns and attracts wide support.

As the largest dairy-farmer organization in the United States, as well as the one that, due to the structure of cooperatives, also represents farmers invested in their own milk processing capacity, we’re well positioned to lead Federal Milk Marketing Order system modernization, and we’re looking forward to discussions that yield a proposal that will nourish this entire industry for a generation, and potentially beyond.

That is how our members lead, and that’s what we will celebrate, both at our annual meeting, throughout National Co-op Month, and as we move forward on FMMO modernization. The work is never-ending. But neither is our progress.

Jim Mulhern

President and CEO, National Milk Producers Federation

Dairy is Retro-Hot With Demand That’s Back to the ’50s

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

Note: This article first appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel.

By Alan Bjerga
Senior Vice President, Communications, NMPF

With this year’s USDA report on per-capita U.S. dairy consumption, the industry has finally moved past the 1960s. In terms of favor with the American public, dairy has returned to 1959.

Sound strange?

It’s true.

The USDA’s annual report on per-capita U.S. dairy consumption released Friday, September 30, saw an emphatic rise in domestic dairy demand, going from 655 pounds per person in 2020 to 667 pounds per person last year. That’s a level of dairy popularity that surpasses 1960, when it was 659 pounds, and is approaching 1959’s consumer appeal of 672 pounds.

In other words, the last time Americans wanted as much dairy as they do today, Elvis was in the Army. And keep in mind, the 1959 population of the United States. then was only slightly more than half of what it is now. And exports, which now take up nearly 20% of domestic production, barely existed back in those days.

So, what does this say about the industry?

What it doesn’t say is that Americans are consuming dairy the same way now as they did then. Fluid milk has continued its slow decline, according to the USDA data. But cheese continues to rise – American-style cheese consumption reached another record last year. And butter – well, butter actually is returning to Eisenhower-era levels, so in that case, a “Back to the Future” comparison may be appropriate.

But even as the dairy product consumption mix shifts over time, the overall positive trajectory – the 2021 gain is the seventh in the past eight years – is clear, and impressive. Despite more and more competition from nondairy competitors . . . despite an increasingly demanding consumer . . . and despite disruptions that range from diet fads to pandemics . . . consumers continue to find dairy increasingly useful, preferable, and important. That’s a tribute to the hard work of dairy farmers and the entire industry. And it’s worth celebrating.

So put on your turntable some Buddy Holly, some Johnny Cash, maybe some Little Richard, or whatever else suits your taste as dairy celebrates. Maybe serve some cheese, some yogurt, or if you’re feeling really old-school, some whole milk – a bright spot in the fluid segment. Just stay away from playing any Chubby Checker. “The Twist” was a hit in 1960. And as dairy breaks historical barriers to reach ever-higher levels of popularity, that’s so last year.

NMPF and USDEC Join Chilean Dairy Industry to Advance Policy Priorities Internationally

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) and the Chilean Federacion Nacional de Productores de Leche (Fedeleche) today finalized an agreement that will facilitate better sharing of knowledge and information and foster collaboration as the three groups advocate for science-based standards and guidelines in agricultural trade policy across the world.

The memorandum of understanding (MOU) establishes a set of objectives that will guide cooperation in supporting common policy priorities in international forums. The collaboration lasts through 2024 and includes a strong focus on establishing events, seminars and conferences to improve mutual understanding on issues such as sustainability, food systems and global trade.

“Dairy producers in the United States and Chile share many of the same values and policy priorities, and will benefit greatly from this partnership,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “We’re excited to work alongside USDEC and Fedeleche to proactively set commonsense food and ag policy.”

“We are delighted at this opportunity to strengthen our relationship with Chilean agricultural producers,” said Krysta Harden, president and CEO of USDEC. “Through this agreement, we are in a better position to ensure that international trade and regulatory policy is reasonable, fair and based in science.”

“At Fedeleche, we value free trade based on clear and fair rules. We are looking forward to working with the American dairy sector to achieve structural reforms that counter the protectionism that we encounter so frequently,” said Marcos Winkler Mayer, president of the Fedeleche. “We celebrate this partnership and are in a better place to serve American and Chilean agriculture and dairy when we work together.”

The MOU between NMPF, USDEC and Fedeleche complements an agreement signed earlier this year with Sociedad Rural Argentina, which provides USDEC and NMPF with an additional avenue to communicate and engage with stakeholders in Latin America.

NMPF Statement on the Bulk Infant Formula to Retail Shelves Act

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

From NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern:

“NMPF has not opposed the temporary, short-term lifting of restrictions on infant formula imports to address the rare formula availability crisis and did not oppose the just-passed Bulk Infant Formula to Retail Shelves Act given its targeted volume and limited time frame. Those guardrails are necessary to ensure that imports temporarily complement U.S. supplies rather than displace existing available dairy formula ingredients.

“NMPF emphatically opposes efforts that would create long-term dependence on foreign suppliers for a critical nutritional food. The focus must be to develop additional production in the United States necessary to ensure that this crisis isn’t repeated. As the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, only a robust domestic supply chain, with American workers and U.S. sources of production, can best protect families against potentially tragic disruptions of critically needed products.

“NMPF also opposes giving foreign companies regulatory advantages that domestic producers don’t have. Overseas milk production that doesn’t meet the same stringent regulations met by our own producers shouldn’t be allowed into the United States under any but the most extreme circumstances, such as the immediate shortfalls that we see now but expect will soon be alleviated by domestic supplies resuming their typical production levels.

“The most meaningful step the U.S. government can take to shore up domestic formula supplies would be to analyze what policy and regulatory reforms are needed to enable the U.S. to expand infant formula production in this country to ensure ample supplies for the domestic market as well as to become a net exporter of infant formula. That retains the strongest degree of domestic control – and thus security — over needed supplies of this critical, life-saving product.”

NMPF’s Bjerga on Butter and Cheese

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

 

NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses the steady rise of butter and cheese consumption over the past decade on RFD-TV. With per-capita U.S. dairy consumption hovering at six-decade highs, butter and cheese have been key drivers of dairy demand. But watch out for sour cream and yogurt when new USDA data comes out Friday, he said.

NMPF Statement on White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), issued the following statement regarding today’s White House Conference on Hunger Nutrition and Health:

“I would like to thank the White House for inviting me to today’s White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Ensuring people have access to the nutrition they need to live, develop, and be healthy is key priority for dairy farmers across the U.S. We are hopeful today will serve as a launching pad for the dedication and collaboration we will need to end food insecurity and reduce diet-related disease in the U.S., goals NMPF shares with the conference.

“We know from decades of working in this area that dairy products — and the 13 essential nutrients they provide such as protein, calcium, Vitamin D and potassium — will be vital ingredients to meeting these goals. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) shows that dietary patterns that include dairy are associated with beneficial health outcomes, such as lowered risk for cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. The guidelines also note that dairy is under-consumed across all age categories. Scientific evidence clearly indicates that milk and dairy foods are part of the solution to challenges like food and nutrition insecurity, health equity, and diet-related and other noncommunicable diseases.

“To prepare for the conference, NMPF worked with other agricultural, anti-hunger, nutrition and medical groups to urge the White House to place a high priority on access to affordable, diverse and healthful foods, which includes protecting Americans’ ability to make informed, meaningful choices about what they eat. NMPF is pleased to see in the White House’s strategy released yesterday a commitment to increased access to affordable food for all and culturally appropriate food options and recommendations. We are also heartened by the strategy’s consistent emphasis on increasing consumption of healthful foods to levels recommended in the dietary guidelines.

NMPF looks forward to continuing to work with all stakeholders inside and outside government to improve nutrition security and diet-related health for all Americans. Together we can realize the policies and programs required to achieve these important goals, including increasing access to affordable food and strengthening Americans’ ability to make informed, meaningful choices across all populations.”

Butter and Cheese Keep Dairy’s Rise Constant

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

While we won’t know until Friday whether U.S. per-capita dairy consumption will officially rise for the seventh time in eight years, we do know from preliminary data that domestic use of butter and cheese reached records in 2021. Then again, that’s far from a surprise.

  

Though other dairy products have had their ups and downs (mostly up), for the past decade butter and cheese have been Old Reliables, with neither ever seeing consumption decline a single time. Their rising popularity has offset drops in fluid-milk consumption (the typical, and inaccurate, trope that anti-dairy activists use to pronounce “death” upon the industry) and is a big part of the industry’s continued success and bright future.

Dairy, as an industry, is in constant evolution, from advances in science to innovations in sustainability. But throughout, “bring on the butter” and “more cheese, please” have been continual refrains.  The data shows it, and there’s no reason think those words won’t echo for years to come.

NMPF’s Bjerga on the Myths of Plant-Based Beverages (Parts 1 & 2)

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

In a two-part interview with Ag Information of the West, NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga takes on the myths perpetuated by plant-based beverage marketers in the context of such beverages’ declining sales.  “If you read some of this media coverage in the last few years, you would have thought that cows were on their way to going extinct,” Bjerga said. “I think the cows are alive and well.” Part 1 is here, part 2 is here.

NMPF’s Galen Discusses USDA Investment in Climate-Start Agriculture

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Chris Galen, senior vice president of membership services and strategic initiatives, discusses USDA’s recent announcement to support dairy farmers nationwide through its Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities.

Say It Loud, Say It Clear: The Plant-Based Beverage Bust is Here

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

It was the fundamental fallacy that launched a thousand news articles: Dairy was dying as consumers were switching to plant-based beverages. That was always a lie — but at least from a certain angle, it could be stretched into something that at least somewhat looked it like could be true. After all, U.S. fluid milk consumption (though not dairy overall, a fact that was conveniently ignored) has declined, and plant-based beverage sales were rising.

But now even that distortion is no longer true. Retail sales volume of plant-based beverages year-over-year have been negative since February, continuing a trend of flat-to-declining volume that dates to mid-2021. This is no longer a blip – it’s a reality, an inconvenient truth that we hope may finally put the original lie to rest.

Declining sales are only some of the woes Team Plant-Based is facing. While eating your fruits and veggies remains good advice – and always will be – that doesn’t mean that ditching dairy nutrients, or animal protein and nutrition in general, is a good idea. The environmental claims of alternatives can be wildly overstated. The nutrition benefits often remain doubtful. And once the novelty wears off, imitator inferiority is left to shine through.

Maybe that’s why Oatly’s share price has declined more than 80 percent since going public last year. Maybe that’s why Beyond Meat is struggling, and the CEO of Maple Leaf Foods said the alts market is unlikely to pan out as originally thought.

And maybe it’s another reason why the Food and Drug Administration shouldn’t reward bad-faith arguments from desperate plant-based promoters that consumer acceptance of their heavily processed, sweetened water as “milk” is inevitable, and they should be rewarded for insisting on misusing a term they have no right to use under existing federal regulation.

If nothing else, perhaps declining sales would inject some welcome humility into marketing claims. Of course, we live in the real world, making that outcome, however desirable, highly doubtful.

But at the very least, the news of declining plant-based beverage sales should be reported just as forcefully as the distortion that was used to malign an entire industry. After being told for years that plant-based beverages were the wave of the future, the public would be well-served to know that the hype was a mirage.

United States to Host 2023 IDF World Dairy Summit in Chicago

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The United States will host the International Dairy Federation (IDF) World Dairy Summit, the world’s biggest dairy conference, in October 2023 at Chicago’s famed McCormick Place conference center, IDF and the U.S. National Committee of the IDF (US-IDF) announced today. The honor provides an opportunity to showcase the dairy sector’s innovations in sustainability, nutrition and health, standards, safety and quality, to accomplish its purpose of nourishing the world with safe, nutritious and sustainable foods.

The IDF World Dairy Summit, the world’s leading international gathering of dairy-industry professionals, provides a vital forum for dairy leaders, experts, farmers, processors, traders and journalists worldwide to discuss how to further advance the collective global dairy sector forward in a positive, sustainable way. The meeting being organized by US-IDF, held in the United States for the first time since 1993, and IDF Head Office, offers a global opportunity for attendees to bring their perspective to discussions on how the sector can deliver impact now and into the future. That reflects the theme of the IDF World Dairy Summit 2023: “BE Dairy –Boundless Potential. Endless Possibilities.”

“As host, U.S. dairy is developing programming that will feature global and industry leaders, experts, scientists, technical specialists, farmers and more, exploring the global dairy sector’s most significant opportunities today and tomorrow,” shares US-IDF Organizing Committee Co-chair Nick Gardner, Senior Vice President of Sustainability and Multilateral Affairs with the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). “At the same time, the beautiful host city of Chicago offers the best of American food, arts, music, and culture, all in close proximity to some of America’s famed dairy regions,” he added.

“The U.S. is excited to showcase the diversity of our dairy industry and its allied sectors,” adds US-IDF Organizing Committee Co-chair Shawna Morris, Senior Vice President of Trade Policy for the National Milk Producers Federation and USDEC. “Today, 94% of U.S. dairy farms are family farms. They span an astonishing variety of sizes and sustainability practices. The U.S. dairy processing sector is no less diverse — from specialty cheesemakers to cutting edge dairy ingredient and cheese manufacturing facilities. Our industry has come together collectively to play a leadership role on sustainability, trade, and dairy nutrition initiatives. We look forward to engaging with the global dairy sector on those and other topics as we work together to collectively reinforce the vital role dairy plays in communities around the world.”

“The IDF World Dairy Summit in Chicago will bring the whole dairy sector to gain and exchange knowledge, promote innovation and create networking and business opportunities. It will also coincide with the 120th anniversary of IDF, an occasion for showing the world all the expertise gain throughout the years and the potential of IDF and its programme of work for the benefit of future generations”, concludes IDF Director General, Ms. Caroline Emond.

For more information about the 2023 IDF World Dairy Summit, visit www.idfwds2023.com. For more information about IDF, visit www.fil-idf.org. For more information about US-IDF, visit www.usidf.org.