Tag: dairy exports

May NEXT-Assisted Export Sales Total 21.4 Million Pounds

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

NEXT member cooperatives secured 93 contracts in May, adding 21.4 million pounds of product in NEXT-assisted sales in 2026. These products will go to customers in Asia, North America, Middle East-North Africa, South America and Central America and will be shipped from May through December.

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, moving products into world markets is essential. NEXT provides a means to move domestic dairy products to overseas markets by helping to overcome U.S. dairy’s trade disadvantages.

The referenced amounts of dairy products reflect current contracts for delivery, not completed export volumes. NEXT will pay export assistance to bidders only when export and delivery of product is verified by submission of required documentation.

April NEXT-Assisted Export Sales Total 16 Million Pounds

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

NEXT member cooperatives secured 58 contracts in April, adding 16 million pounds of product in NEXT-assisted sales in 2026. These products will go to customers in Asia, North America, Oceania, Middle East-North Africa, South America, Central America and the Caribbean and will be shipped from April through November 2026.

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, moving products into world markets is essential. NEXT provides a means to move domestic dairy products to overseas markets by helping to overcome U.S. dairy’s trade disadvantages.

The referenced amounts of dairy products reflect current contracts for delivery, not completed export volumes. NEXT will pay export assistance to bidders only when export and delivery of product is verified by submission of required documentation.

USTR Report Underlines Landmark Wins for Common Name Protections

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

The National Milk Producers Federation, U.S. Dairy Export Council and Consortium for Common Food Names welcomed today’s release of the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) 2026 Special 301 Report, which details the significant progress made over the past year in securing commitments from U.S. trade partners to protect the free use of generic food and beverage terms.

The annual report documenting the most pressing intellectual property issues facing U.S. exporters this year spotlights the administration’s successful efforts to protect American producers’ use of common names such as “parmesan” and “feta” against the European Union’s protectionist geographical indication (GI) policies. NMPF, USDEC and CCFN have been proud to coordinate with the administration on combatting policies that restrict the use of widely recognized food and beverage terms to only specific European producers and effectively cut U.S. producers out of certain key markets.

“For too long, the EU has weaponized GI policy to crowd out American producers from markets they have served for decades,” Krysta Harden, president and CEO of USDEC, said. “This past year’s reciprocal trade agreements are a sea change, and we welcome USTR’s leadership and persistence in addressing this issue. We encourage the administration to build on this impressive foundation in every remaining negotiation to ensure U.S. exporters are never again shut out of export markets by the EU’s GI misuse.”

“EU GI schemes create a two-tiered system that benefits European dairy producers and stamps out competition,” Gregg Doud, president and CEO of NMPF, said. “NMPF deeply appreciates USTR’s leadership in addressing the GI restrictions detailed in the Special 301 report as a priority trade barrier. We look forward to continuing this great work with USTR.”

“The EU’s approach to geographical indications is simply a dressed-up trade barrier. It is entirely unacceptable,” Jaime Castaneda, executive director of CCFN, said. “Too many trading partners have been coerced into imposing barriers on products using common food names. We greatly appreciate the administration’s leadership in reversing this trend, and we urge USTR to build on their great work securing important protections for common names in nine Agreements on Reciprocal Trade signed to date and protect common names in every market.”

CCFN submitted comments to the agency in January, which broke down the many markets where U.S. dairy producers’ common name rights are being threatened, including “asiago,” “provolone” and “gruyere,” and participated in the Special 301 public hearing USTR held in February. NMPF and USDEC filed supporting comments, expressing gratitude for the administration’s action.

All three organizations will continue to work closely with USTR and U.S. government partners to monitor implementation of the reciprocal trade agreements and to ensure that U.S. trade partners fully meet their commitments to maintaining open and predictable access for U.S. dairy and other common name products.

Protein demand pulling up milk checks

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

By Will Loux, Senior Vice President, Global Economic Affairs

From its primacy in the latest dietary guidelines to front page headlines, protein is seemingly everywhere, and dairy is particularly well poised to supply the growing demand as the critical nutrient takes center stage in American diets. The good news for dairy producers is that the growing demand for dairy protein is starting to be reflected in their milk checks.

As nonfat dry milk (NFDM) prices hit record highs and dry whey prices sit comfortably above 60 cents, the positive sales momentum driven by today’s protein boom is directly translating into higher prices for dairy producers. In fact, the implied Class IV price based on CME spot values has improved by more than $10 per hundredweight (cwt.) since the start of the year, with most of the rally being driven by NFDM prices gaining by more than $1 per pound.

However, it isn’t specifically booming NFDM and dry whey demand that’s causing prices to rise. Rather, despite surging U.S. milk production, it is a lack of supply of those products that explains the improved prices. Simply put: Milk — and specifically protein — that otherwise would have gone toward sweet whey and nonfat dry milk is now being made into protein concentrates/isolates, ultrafiltered milk, and high-protein yogurts.

Taking a closer look at the numbers, in 2025, U.S. NFDM production was at its lowest ebb since 2013, while skim milk powder (SMP) fell to its lowest level since 2012. Even more startling, U.S. dry whey production was at its lowest for this century. Given U.S. skim solids production grew by 3.6% over the last 12 months, where is all that protein going?

The chart above shows the year-over-year change of U.S. protein utilization by-product category on an annualized basis. Historically, cheese and whey were the primary users of dairy proteins (dark and light blue, respectively). The whey solids coming off the cheese vat are increasingly being directed toward whey protein concentrate 80 (WPC80) and whey protein isolate (WPI), where production is up a combined 10% on a protein-equivalent basis. Beyond cheese though, when milk outpaced cheese’s needs — due to either abundant supply or demand slowdowns such as the COVID-19 pandemic — milk historically went into balancing plants for manufacturing dried skim ingredients, like NFDM.

Today, however, the fastest-growing user of dairy protein is the “everything else” category in yellow, which is surging as U.S. yogurt and cottage cheese production grew by 388 and 31 million pounds, respectively, in 2025, demonstrating gains of 8% apiece. Production of protein-rich dairy beverages isn’t tracked by USDA, but all signs point to booming demand there as well.

In fact, the growth in production of these high-protein products absorbed the equivalent of 690 million pounds of SMP, or 32% of production. For producers, if that dairy protein had gone into the dryer, like it had in previous expansion cycles, it is difficult to imagine U.S. nonfat dry milk holding at $1.20 per pound, like it did for much of 2025, let alone rallying to today’s record highs.

Looking ahead, as favorable as protein demand is, $2.20 per pound for NFDM is likely unsustainable without international prices coming up to meet the United States. U.S. NFDM prices are 67 cents above SMP on the Global Dairy Trade (GDT) and 75 cents above European SMP. While 70% of U.S. NFDM and SMP production went toward either the domestic market or Mexico in 2025 (where the U.S. has a distinct freight and tariff advantage), and 665 million pounds went to highly contested markets, like Southeast Asia. If U.S. sales to these markets begin to ease, prices are likely to follow. Yet even if today’s altitude is unlikely to be maintained indefinitely, NFDM prices should be firmer than the last several years thanks to the strength and pull of protein in yogurts, cottage cheese, and beverages.

 

This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on April 27, 2026.

NMPF Opens Doors for Dairy in Ecuador Trade Deal

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

NMPF’s sustained engagement with the U.S. government continues to pay off for American dairy farmers, with a new U.S.-Ecuador reciprocal trade agreement, signed March 13, representing the latest in a string of hard-fought market access wins.

The new deal would improve export opportunities for U.S. dairy products in a market long plagued by restrictive tariffs and nontariff trade barriers and would deliver on several dairy priorities. It would:

  • Eliminate tariffs on a range of U.S. dairy products;
  • Overhaul Ecuador’s burdensome import licensing system; and
  • Recognize U.S. regulatory oversight, including dropping facility listing requirements and accepting certificates from American regulatory authorities.

For cheese producers specifically, the deal protects 40 common cheese names including “parmesan,” blocking foreign competitors from monopolizing terms that U.S. producers depend on.

“With an unprecedented investment in U.S. dairy manufacturing capacity, deals like this are vital to making it easier for international buyers to source the great products our dairy companies are making,” NMPF President and CEO Gregg Doud said.

The Ecuador deal is the tenth agreement secured by the Administration that includes new market access for U.S. dairy products. NMPF and USDEC remain committed to working with USTR to support implementation and build on this momentum.

NMPF Raises Supply Chain Challenges on Multiple Fronts

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

NMPF’s Tony Rice took a central role in elevating serious supply chain issues from maritime reform to cargo theft before Congress and the White House in March as disruptions continue to threaten U.S. dairy exports.

Rice, NMPF’s senior director of trade policy, testified March 17 before a House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform and Antitrust hearing on ocean supply chain challenges, laying out the stakes for dairy exporters.

“Dairy farmers milk their cows 365 days a year,” Rice said. “For a dairy producer, these supply chain issues are not abstract policy concerns. When export shipments are delayed, cancelled, or become more expensive to move, the disruptions ripple back through the supply chain and ultimately affect farm income.”

The U.S. dairy industry exported $9.6 billion and three million metric tons of product last year, making reliable transportation vital to its economic wellbeing. Yet exporters remain heavily dependent on a handful of foreign-owned ocean carriers. Shipping disruptions ripple back through the supply chain and affect farm income.

Throughout the hearing, Rice relayed the industry’s call for greater investment in domestic shipbuilding capacity, stronger Federal Maritime Commission oversight, and improved transparency from carriers on booking decisions.

Even as supply chain challenges persist, cargo theft of intermodal shipping containers is spiking as well. Rice represented the food and ag industry as part of a coalition of supply chain stakeholders in a March 18 meeting with the National Economic Council at the White House. The group pressed the administration for resources to combat organized criminal networks that break into containers in search of high-value goods, with dairy exports caught in the crossfire.

In parallel, the NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council are working with Congress to advance the bipartisan Combating Organized Retail Crime Act (CORCA), which would give the Department of Homeland Security new tools to track and apprehend offenders.

Members experiencing supply chain issues should contact Tony Rice at trice@nmpf.org.

Trade Pacts Offer Dairy Opportunities, Trade Leader Morris Says

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

The United States is negotiating bilateral trade agreements at a frenetic pace across the globe. Dairy’s key to success has been a proactive approach that gets the fundamentals of industry needs right, said Shawna Morris, an executive vice president with NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council, in a Dairy Defined Podcast released today.

“On the whole, a lot of good stuff coming down the pipe,” said Morris, specifically citing agreements with Indonesia and Taiwan as holding potential for significant market expansion, for dairy, which saw its second-best year for exports in 2025. Both in advising the U.S. government on agreements and maintaining gains overseas, NMPF/USDEC trade efforts are matching the federal government’s in its intensity, she said.

“Our focus really is on, how do we make sure that we’re keeping the doors open, and also looking at some of the policy tools that can be leveraged in order to expand consumption or dairy access more broadly,” Morris said.

NMPF’s Rice: U.S. Dairy Banking on Renewing the USMCA Trade Agreement

Posted on by Jessi-Ryah Cordova

U.S. agriculture groups are watching the pending negotiations between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada as the countries work on renewing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Tony Rice, senior director of trade policy for NMPF, said the USMCA is very important for the dairy industry and U.S. dairy exports. “They’re number one and two, respectively, and the USMCA agreement has brought a tremendous number of benefits in growing our exports to Mexico, and simultaneously to Canada, while servicing the demand in those two markets,” he said.

U.S. Dairy Testifies on State of Maritime Supply Chain

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

Tony Rice, Senior Director of Trade Policy at the National Milk Producers Federation and U.S. Dairy Export Council, testified today before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform and Antitrust on the maritime supply chain challenges faced by the U.S. dairy industry.

The U.S. dairy industry exported $9.6 billion and three million metric tons of cheeses, milk powders, whey proteins, and other dairy products last year, making reliable transportation vital to its economic wellbeing. Yet American dairy exporters have little choice but to rely on a small number of ocean carrier options, almost all of which are foreign owned.

“Dairy farmers milk their cows 365 days a year,” Rice said. “When export shipments are delayed, cancelled, or become more expensive to move, the disruptions ripple back through the supply chain and ultimately affect farm income.”

Rice drew on lessons from the pandemic-induced supply chain crisis, when severe delays, routinely cancelled bookings and unprecedented port congestion disrupted cargo movements and cost U.S. dairy producers billions in unexpected costs and lost sales opportunities. While the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 addressed several issues related to unfair fees, Rice highlighted that dairy exporters in the U.S. continue to face operational uncertainty when bookings are rejected, port calls are skipped or receiving windows shift without explanation.

To address these challenges, the U.S. dairy industry called for greater investment in the domestic maritime sector to expand American shipbuilding capacity, robust Federal Maritime Commission oversight of the global maritime carrier marketplace and increased transparency from ocean carriers on booking decisions.

“We recognize the importance of efficient global shipping networks,” Rice said. “Our concern is ensuring that those networks work for American dairy exporters as well as they work for global carriers.”