Incoming NMPF President & CEO Gregg Doud explains NMPF’s role in Washington policy formulation and dairy farmer priorities, including a new farm bill, Federal Milk Marketing Order modernization, integrity in plant-based labeling and dietary guidelines that maximize the benefits of dairy, in an interview with RFD-TV. He also emphasized the importance of international trade and global issues to U.S. dairy’s future. “We need to look five, 10 years ahead and see what this industry needs,” he said.
Tag: dairy climate
NMPF’s Bjerga on Global Food Security and Dairy’s Role
Author of the book “Endless Appetites” and NMPF Executive Vice President for Communications and Industry Relations Alan Bjerga speaks on trends in global food security from the World Food Prize in Des Moines, IA, with RFD-TV. Bjerga also discusses how dairy and animal agriculture are an important part of food security solutions both through nutrition and job creating, pointing out how livestock farming can be done sustainably and noting dairy’s role in furthering that goal.
CDI’s Vanderham, NMPF’s Bjerga discuss California flooding
NMPF Board of Directors member Cory Vanderham of California Dairies, Inc., and NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga talk about the challenges of California dairy producers and the need for long-term policy solutions on RFD-TV. While record snowpack is replenishing water supplies battered by multi-year drought, it also is bringing chaos to producers who are facing extreme weather conditions that require immediate reaction. For more details on how Vanderham has handled this year’s deluge, check out NMPF’s recent Dairy Defined podcast.
NMPF’s Bjerga on Dairy’s Recent Policy Wins
As the year comes to a close, the National Milk Producers Federation is applauding two recent measures that support the dairy industry. NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga spoke with RFD-TV’s own Janet Adkison about how the Growing Climate Solutions Act and Sustains Act benefit dairy farmers, and what USTR’s announcement of a new request for dispute settlement consultations with Canada means for U.S. dairy.
https://www.rfdtv.com/two-recent-measures-from-congress-and-ustr-are-giving-a-boost-to-dairy-farmers
Scholarships give back to dairy, NMPF’s Ayache says
The National Dairy Leadership Scholarship Program supports dairy research — and the industry as a whole — by assisting students who do cutting-edge scholarship, and then stay within the sector, said Nicole Ayache, National Milk Producers Federation Vice President, Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability, in an interview with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. “We’re really trying to support those individuals and their career. We want them to stay within dairy and contribute to our community,” she said. More information on the scholarships and how to donate to them is here.
NMPF Lauds Bipartisan Ag Climate Measures in Appropriations Package
The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) today commended Congress for including the Growing Climate Solutions Act and the SUSTAINS Act in its final fiscal year 2023 budget package. These measures will help dairy farmers seek additional sustainability opportunities as they work to fulfill the dairy sector’s voluntary, producer-led goal of becoming greenhouse gas neutral or better by 2050.
“Environmental markets and conservation programs have the potential to meaningfully assist dairy producers as they work to meet their 2050 environmental stewardship goals,” said NMPF president and CEO Jim Mulhern. “The Growing Climate Solutions Act and the SUSTAINS Act will strengthen these important tools.”
The Growing Climate Solutions Act, authored by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-MI, and Senator Mike Braun, R-IN, passed the Senate last June on a bipartisan vote of 92-8. The legislation would enable USDA to register technical service providers that help farmers implement stewardship practices that can generate credits on environmental markets. In turn, producers will be better positioned to participate in these important markets. Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-VA, and Don Bacon, R-NE, have introduced companion legislation in the House.
The SUSTAINS Act, authored by House Agriculture Committee Chairman-elect Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, R-PA, passed the House Agriculture Committee in May on a bipartisan voice vote. The measure would allow private sector funds to supplement existing funding for farm bill conservation programs, which are continuously oversubscribed. The bill is an innovative approach to boosting funding for USDA conservation programs, which provide important technical assistance to dairy farmers for a variety of stewardship practices.
In addition to the sponsors of both bills, committee leaders Rep. David Scott, D-GA, and Sen. John Boozman, R-AR, also played important roles in finalizing the bipartisan package.
“We commend the leaders of the Agriculture Committees – Senators Debbie Stabenow and John Boozman and Reps. David Scott and GT Thompson – for working together to fashion this bipartisan agreement on agricultural climate legislation,” Mulhern said. “We look forward to working with them and their colleagues to build on this progress in the new year.”
NMPF Urges Sped-Up FDA Approval of Climate Friendly Feed Additives
ARLINGTON, VA — NMPF called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use existing legal authority to modernize its regulations allowing for faster approval of animal-feed additives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, submitting comments to the agency today that highlighted the need for urgent action to enhance dairy’s role as a climate solution.
“Innovative and voluntary solutions are needed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including methane,” said Dr. Jamie Jonker, NMPF’s chief science officer, in the comments submitted today. “Enteric emissions directly from cows currently account for roughly one third of all GHG emissions from dairy farms and present an important area of opportunity for methane reductions. Feed composition changes can directly or indirectly reduce enteric emissions resulting from livestock.”
While animal-feed additives are a promising path toward a net-zero future for dairy as outlined in industry goals, the pace of their approval lags that of competitors such as the European Union due to current FDA processes. By streamlining bureaucracy and allowing feed-additives to be treated as foods rather than as drugs, the United States can maintain and advance its global leadership in sustainability, Jonker wrote.
Through the U.S. Dairy Net Zero Initiative, a collaboration across dairy organizations, dairy-farm research is advancing new technology and new market development opportunities to make sustainability practices more accessible and affordable to farms of all sizes, including enteric methane reduction.
“One of the greatest opportunities that exists for U.S. dairy farmers is their ability to provide real solutions to many of today’s biggest environmental challenges like GHG emissions,” Jonker wrote. “Embracing new practices and technologies is key to making America’s dairy farmers an environmental solution while providing wholesome and nutritious dairy products to the U.S. and the world.”
For more on how dairy is advancing its stewardship and best practices, visit the National Dairy FARM (Farmers Assuring Responsible Management) Program’s Environmental Stewardship page.
Live, from the Dairy Bar, it’s NMPF!
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga gives an impromptu tour of the Dairy Bar and the Joint Annual Meeting in Denver. From delicious products to critical information, the Dairy Bar has it all — and the meeting itself resulted in gains for dairy producers, as detailed in this interview with RFD-TV.
NMPF Commends USDA for Dairy Support in Climate-Smart Partnerships Program
Four NMPF member cooperatives are poised to receive significant support under USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program, which supports voluntary, producer-led initiatives to increase on-farm adoption of climate smart agricultural technologies and practices.
NMPF members are leading or partnering on projects that will receive roughly $245 million under the new program, announced September 14, include:
California Dairies, Inc. – CDI is a partner on a project led by the California Dairy Research Foundation and supported by numerous California dairy sector stakeholders that will build climate-smart dairy markets and provide financial incentives for dairy farmers to adopt climate-smart manure management practices to reduce methane emissions and nitrogen surplus. The project, which leverages matching funds from non-federal sources, will emphasize advanced manure management practices on dairies of varying sizes. It will establish on-farm full-scale pilot projects for the development of these practices, and measure and quantify their associated GHG and nitrogen benefits.
Dairy Farmers of America – DFA is the project lead on a climate-smart pilot initiative that will directly connect on-farm greenhouse gas emissions reductions with low-carbon dairy market opportunities. The project will focus on reducing on-farm greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon sequestration on U.S. dairy farms, as well as developing and marketing climate-smart, low-carbon dairy products. Through these two areas of focus, the pilot project will create a self-funding circular rural economic model in which DFA members will receive incentives to keep reducing on-farm GHG emissions; in turn, those reduced emissions will lead to low-carbon dairy products. The project will deploy a robust carbon accounting system and market low-carbon dairy products at a sustainability premium that benefits DFA and its member-owners.
Land O’Lakes –Truterra, the Land O’Lakes sustainability business, is leading an initiative with American Farmland Trust and other partners to catalyze a self-sustaining, market-based network to broaden farmer access, scale adoption of climate-smart practices, and sustainably produce dairy and grain commodities with verified and quantified climate benefits. The project will use initial funding from USDA and matching funds from project partners to help incentivize practice changes. The project intends to become self-funding by selling climate-smart commodities and ecosystem credits to downstream buyers at scale, which will be in turn reinvested in delivering technical assistance to farmers to support additional practice changes. The project will seek to engage up to 20,000 farmers and dairy producers and affect more than 7 million acres, with a focus on reaching historically underserved farmers.
Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association – MDVA is a partner on a project led by the Conservation Innovation Fund. This project, focused on the Mid-Atlantic region, will help expand climate-smart markets and address climate-smart plans and practices for hundreds of dairy producers and will provide an on-ramp and serve as a catalyst for additional state and private capital to bolster whole-farm plans. It builds on an existing partnership between MDVA, the Conservation Innovation Fund, and the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium to expand climate-smart commodity initiatives across targeted watersheds in the Mid-Atlantic.
Projects funded under Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities will help U.S. dairy farmers fulfill their environmental stewardship goals to become greenhouse gas neutral or better by 2050 and improve water quality while optimizing water use.
“America’s dairy community applauds USDA’s support for the robust efforts dairy farmers are leading to develop and implement climate-smart solutions that will benefit the entire food chain, from producer to consumer,” said NMPF president and CEO Jim Mulhern. “As an agricultural leader in sustainability, dairy farmers appreciate this funding that will help us meet our ambitious industry-wide goals for net-zero emissions and optimized water use.”
NMPF Statement on USDA Support for Dairy in Climate-Smart Commodities Projects
From NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern:
“America’s dairy community applauds USDA’s support for the robust efforts dairy farmers are leading to develop and implement climate-smart solutions that will benefit the entire food chain, from producer to consumer. As an agricultural leader in sustainability, dairy farmers appreciate this funding that will help us meet our ambitious industry-wide goals for net-zero emissions and optimized water use.
“NMPF is especially proud of the leadership its member cooperatives are showing in these critical areas, with several initiatives receiving significant USDA support. California Dairies Inc., Dairy Farmers of America, Land O’Lakes, and the Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association – who are leading or partnering on specific projects that may receive up to $245 million in funding — each should be commended for their efforts, along with other dairy groups who are seeking to build a better future through climate-smart agriculture projects.”
NMPF Commends Climate Provisions in Senate’s Inflation Reduction Act
The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) commended the inclusion of $20 billion in new funding for USDA conservation programs in the Inflation Reduction Act which passed the Senate today.
The funding, spearheaded by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-MI, will help dairy farmers advance their proactive sustainability leadership by enhancing farm bill conservation programs with an emphasis on key dairy areas of opportunity, including feed management. The new investments will provide important voluntary technical assistance to dairy farmers who undertake such stewardship practices, including targeted new funding that emphasizes critical farm practices that yield significant environmental benefits for dairy.
“Dairy farmers seize environmental sustainability opportunities whenever possible,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “The funding increases in this package will better position dairy farmers to effectively implement the dairy sector’s Net Zero Initiative and fulfill its 2050 environmental stewardship goals. We are very grateful to Chairwoman Stabenow for her success and leadership in securing this meaningful new conservation investment, which will be a game-changer for dairy.”
Dairy farmers in 2020 committed in their Net Zero Initiative to become greenhouse gas neutral or better by 2050, while also maximizing water quality and optimizing water use around the country.
Key wins for dairy among the climate-smart ag provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act include:
- $8.45 billion in new funds for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which provides important technical assistance to dairy farmers, targeted toward stewardship practices that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
- $25 million annually for Conservation Innovation Trials, with new funding targeted toward initiatives that use feed and diet management to reduce the enteric methane emissions that can comprise roughly one-third of a dairy farm’s greenhouse gas footprint. NMPF is excited for this opportunity to amplify its focus on reducing enteric emissions; and
- $6.75 billion in new funds for the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which funds locally developed, targeted partnership projects, emphasizing initiatives that incentivize or target reduced methane emissions.
NMPF and the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives last year led a coalition of 12 agricultural and conservation organizations on a letter advocating for significant new funding for climate-smart agricultural practices while opposing tax policy proposals that could have undermined the transfer of family farms from one generation to the next. NMPF is pleased that those tax policy proposals are not included in this legislation and thanks the many members in both parties who advocated against them.
NMPF also looks forward to continuing to work with both Republicans and Democrats to enact climate and conservation policy into law. Last year, the Senate passed the Growing Climate Solutions Act, authored by Senator Mike Braun, R-IN, and Chairwoman Stabenow by a vote of 92-8. More recently, the House Agriculture Committee adopted the SUSTAINS Act authored by Ranking Member Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, R-PA, by a voice vote. Last month, NMPF worked with Reps. Jim Baird, R-IN, and Jimmy Panetta, D-CA, to secure new funding for animal feed additive approvals in pending appropriations legislation.
