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NMPF Calls On USDA to Finally Implement Promotion Assessment on Dairy Imports

September 4, 2009

 

NMPF Calls On USDA to Finally Implement Promotion Assessment on Dairy Imports

NMPF has renewed its call for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to finally implement the long-delayed promotion checkoff on dairy imports, seven years after the measure was first passed into law.

The USDA issued a Proposed Rule in May, and invited public comment on the measure, which was first written into law in the 2002 Farm Bill, and was later affirmed in the 2008 Farm Bill. But a year after the most recent Farm Bill was approved, the import assessment is still languishing. Now, some have called for a farmer referendum on the entire promotion checkoff in order to justify the assessment on imports.

"The history of efforts to implement the assessment is filled with denial, disinformation, and delay," said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. "All we have ever wanted is to have importers of foreign products pay to help promote the U.S. dairy market from which they benefit, the same as our farmers do. But importers continue to grasp at every straw they can to further impede the process."

Kozak said that some comments submitted to USDA as part of its rulemaking process suggest that the department should hold a national farmer referendum before implementing the import assessment. These comments argue that the promotion program approved in previous referenda is not the same program as will exist once USDA implements the import assessment. Other comments also have expressed concern that state- and regionally-specific promotions, such as those administered by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board and the California Milk Advisory Board, may no longer be allowed if imports are assessed.

NMPF said such comments "are part of the continuing misinformation being spread to scuttle this initiative, and have no merit. There is no valid reason to conduct a lengthy and expensive referendum process that ultimately is paid for by our farmers," Kozak said. "Given the extensive history behind implementing this import assessment, any referendum would only serve to further delay implementation since any referendum will most certainly pass.