Tag: dairy

NMPF Offers Webinar on 2021 Dairy Economy as DMC Deadline Approaches

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

With deadlines for the Dairy Margin Coverage program and Coronavirus Food Assistance Program signups approaching on Dec. 11, the National Milk Producers Federation is offering dairy farmers, cooperative members and state dairy associations a free webinar Dec. 2 to help them develop effective risk management plans that can protect them in what’s predicted to be a volatile year in 2021.

NMPF Chief Economist Peter Vitaliano, creator of the monthly Dairy Market Report released earlier today, will be discussing the dairy price outlook for next year, and the value of risk management tools including Dairy Margin Coverage, in a webinar moderated by Chris Galen, NMPF’s Senior Vice President for Member Services, at 1:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Dec. 2. Participants will be able to ask questions about the year ahead and learn more about how farmers can manage their risk through expected turbulence.

The webinar will examine the milk and feed price forecast, forecast margins, and analyze how the Dairy Margin Coverage program will offer farmers protection against price volatility. To register, click here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_yr4QZ8HhSc-zdvujrg_zBA

Current USDA calculations predict that the DMC, adopted with NMPF’s leadership in the 2018 farm bill, will offer payments averaging $1.05 per cwt in the first eight months of next year for those at the maximum $9.50 coverage level. That vastly outstrips program premiums, making coverage for a farm’s first 5 million pounds of milk production a no-brainer, Vitaliano said. The DMC also offers affordable protection to all producers against price catastrophes and can be used in tandem with other risk management tools, such as the Dairy-Revenue Protection and the Livestock Gross Margin programs.

To determine the appropriate level of DMC coverage for a specific dairy operation, producers can use the recently updated online dairy decision tool offered through the USDA’s DMC informational page. Dairy producers can also visit NMPF’s page on risk management to learn more about DMC, CFAP and other tools to promote financial security for dairy operations.

NMPF Statement on EU’s Retaliatory Tariffs on Dairy

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

In response to the European Union’s (EU) imposition of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agriculture exports, which escalates the dispute over World Trade Organization (WTO)-incompliant aircraft subsidies, National Milk Producers Federation President and CEO Jim Mulhern issued the following statement:

“Europe has long wielded restrictive and unjustified trade tactics to limit fair competition from U.S. agriculture, including dairy exports. While Europe may be authorized to retaliate, the U.S. has already taken deliberate action to address the WTO decision. Meanwhile, Europe has failed to come into compliance with their WTO obligations.

“As the U.S. works to hold Europe accountable to its WTO obligations, U.S. retaliatory tariffs against EU dairy products continue to play a key role in bringing Europe to the negotiating table and compelling them to fulfill their trade commitments. The EU’s restrictive trade policies that have resulted in a one-way flow of agriculture trade, and in particular dairy trade, to Europe is something that both the current and future Administrations need to keep in mind. In fact, the trade deficit between the EU and U.S. continues to widen as the EU uses unjustified trade tactics to erode U.S. market access and limit fair competition.

“One of the most egregious of these tactics is the EU’s misuse of geographical indications (GIs) to ban the U.S. from selling cheeses with common names, such as asiago, feta or parmesan. We commend USTR’s continued maintenance of GI cheeses on the WTO-authorized list of tariff retaliation as these tariffs help to temporarily level the playing field for U.S. producers.

“It’s time for Europe to not only comply with its WTO obligations, but also make a fundamental change to retire its discriminatory agricultural trade policies once and for all.”

NMPF Congratulates President-Elect Biden and Incoming Congress

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The National Milk Producers Federation congratulated President-elect Joe Biden and members of the upcoming 117th Congress for their election victories, pledging to work for bipartisan solutions to the many challenges faced in agriculture and in the nation.

“Congratulations to President-elect Biden and the incoming members of the 117th Congress, who will have a lot of work to do in this country, from legislating to building common ground,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “Dairy is ready to do its part and work with the administration and Congress to face difficult problems successfully, in the bipartisan spirit we have always practiced and believed in.”

NMPF has long been committed to working with both major political parties for sound, consensus-based public policy. More on NMPF’s approach to policy, why dairy farmers and the cooperatives they own possess a distinct voice within agriculture, and the crucial role they can play in the months ahead, can be found in this week’s Dairy Defined column.

Jim Mulhern Remarks at NMPF/NDB/UDIA Joint Annual Meeting

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of remarks made Oct. 27.

Good afternoon, and good morning to all of you joining us in the West. Let me add my thanks to you for being here for our first-ever — and I hope last ever — virtual annual meeting. I do wish we could be together in person and, like all of you, I’m looking forward to getting to the other side of this dreadful pandemic. But right now, we’re all trying hard to make the best of a bad situation.

So, I want to jump right into things here with a few brief remarks.  Then we’ve got another great presentation for you: Our annual NMPF Town Hall issues update with a panel featuring some of our key experts working on your behalf on a wide range of dairy policy issues, economics and the FARM Program.

Because of our more limited time format for this year’s meeting we’ve condensed our traditional Town Hall panel for this live presentation. But we still want you to provide you with more in-depth discussions on all the issue areas we are involved in. So, we’ve taped a series of presentations that you can find online on our website, nmpf.org. I encourage you to watch them at your convenience to learn more about the wide range of important work NMPF has done this year.

And, man, what a year. For those who were with us last year in New Orleans, I’m sure none of you remember what I talked about. But my message was the importance of resilience — how it is one of the key strengths that all of you as dairy farmers consistently exhibit and how it has helped us get through nearly a half-decade of difficult times.

Well, little did I know back then just how important resilience was going to be for all of us. This year has posed challenges beyond what any of us could have imagined just one year ago…. challenges on our farms, in our families, and to our futures.

And yet, the obstacles we’ve faced this year will only make us stronger as we deal with the hardships that, yes, still lie ahead.

Think back to March, when the COVID-19 crisis began to profoundly change all our lives. The challenges were immediate… and clear. The solutions, less so. At National Milk, as we looked at all of this, there were a few things we knew. We knew that the nation’s dairy farmers and our member cooperatives are essential for the nourishment of those we serve. We knew that the dairy community can be formidable when it pursues its goals with unity and commitment. And we knew that our organization has demonstrated a track record of effectiveness, even in the face of daunting tasks.

That all gave us confidence. And just like the thousands of dairy farmers we serve, we went to work to tackle the crisis, consulting closely with our leaders, seeking ways to stem the damage and improve lives.

We needed to be a resource to not only our dues-paying members, but to all dairy farmers who were dealing with immediate crises in their operations and supply chains. And even in those darkest times, there were bright spots. Aided greatly by the efforts of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, international trade saw strong demand. Here at home, retail milk flew off store shelves, as consumers showed their support for the nutritious beverages they relied on most.

But the root of dairy’s resilience was centered, as always, on the farm, and led by many of you…. our farmer-leaders. Faced with an unprecedented rupture in the balance of supply and demand, many farmers used every tool in their arsenal to throttle back production — from changing feed rations and milking schedules to putting the brakes on herd expansion. Those efforts helped stave off what would have been a complete price collapse and they set the stage for a rebound.

Farmers and our co-ops took important steps to address the issues they could control. Meanwhile, we advocated for our industry before Congress and  USDA, and the White House. As a highly perishable, 24/7/365 days a year commodity, dairy never stops, and that made the need for immediate, robust support for dairy simply essential. We engaged in marathon discussions, and strategized across the industry and throughout the government. Together, we succeeded in making sure dairy received important levels of government disaster assistance, both in the first round of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program payments and in the more recent CFAP 2.

To be sure, these government programs are far from perfect – not all farms were treated equally, and we continue to work with Congress and USDA to remedy flaws in future disaster assistance. But this assistance did much to cushion the immediate blows to balance sheets from COVID-19. And it continues to help stabilize operations nationwide.

Beyond direct federal disaster assistance, we also knew that, while farm payments helped, they didn’t address the root of COVID-19’s impact on dairy – the devastating blow to dairy demand from lost foodservice sales, a huge part of our market.

We emphasized to policy makers how government dairy purchases can create a positive economic cycle, with programs like the popular Food Boxes providing  products to families hit hard by the pandemic. Those government purchases create demand that strengthens prices, keeps processors operating and enables dairy farmers to get support where they really want it — through improved milk checks.

We’ve experienced a roller-coaster ride in prices for sure – but the federal assistance kept the worst-case scenarios from occurring. And it shows yet again how effective advocacy can prompt a forceful and helpful government response.

Just as important as protecting our businesses, of course, is protecting our families, and our workers, and our communities, especially during a pandemic. Dairy has always been a leader in stewardship to our land, our animals and our community – and this year has been no exception. Through the National Dairy FARM program, we quickly made available industry best practices and guidance to help address the crisis, and through our outreach and our coronavirus toolbox on our website, we gave our members – and all dairy farmers – the information they needed to adjust to dairy farming in this new reality.

So, what will all this mean in the days ahead? Well, make no mistake: this crisis is far from over. Without a vaccine, with an uncertain political future, with an economy that still hasn’t found a “new normal,” there’s no happy ending I can share with you today, because we still have a long way to go. But I’d like to conclude with a few observations that offer hope and optimism for the journey ahead:

  •  First, it is the strength of Farmer-owned dairy cooperatives that have led the industry through this crisis, and they will carry it through to the end. From our economic leadership, to our commitment to customers and consumers, to making our voices heard in Washington, co-ops remain the heart and soul of this industry. And this industry benefits best when our cooperatives speak with unified voices, on everything from marketing orders to on-farm best practices.
  • Despite the few naysayers out there who love to sow discord in difficult times, it is our unity as an industry that enables us to achieve our goals and helps us prevail. We will continue to work together as this crisis evolves, and our track record of success this year helps set the stage for future success.
  • Finally, the lessons we’ve learned here are applicable elsewhere. We have learned that the Dairy Margin Coverage program, which we fought for in the 2018 farm bill, provides important risk management and affordable catastrophic coverage when farmers need it most.  And we’ve learned again that the positive stewardship story so crucial this year, focusing on farmers and their high level of  care for their animals and the land, this provides the backbone needed for other exciting and challenging endeavors, such as our industrywide Net Zero Initiative and our Stewardship Commitment goals.

So, know that our challenges and risks are far from over.

But we’ve already proven a lot – to ourselves, and to the nation. We will get through this, and we’re stronger now than before. Throughout the world, everyone is hoping tomorrow will be brighter. We KNOW it will be, because of the work we’ve done together that has brought us here today.

Thanks again for this opportunity to speak to you.

FDA Must Enforce Fake-Dairy Rules, NMPF Tells Agency Ombudsman in New Advocacy Phase

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

With FDA giving little indication of promised action on proper labeling of imitation dairy products, the National Milk Producers Federation today asked the agency’s ombudsman to ensure that rules are properly enforced.

“Allowing unlawfully labeled ‘plant-based’ imitation dairy foods to proliferate poses an immediate and growing risk to public health; it is a clear dereliction of the FDA’s duty to enforce federal law and agency regulations,” wrote NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern in the letter, sent to Dr. Laurie Lenkel, ombudsman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “The FDA’s Office of the Ombudsman must intervene to break the bureaucratic logjam that is adversely affecting consumers. Doing so would fit squarely within the Office’s own mission to ensure even-handed application of FDA policy and procedures.”

The FDA ombudsman, based in the agency commissioner’s office, “serves as a neutral and independent resource for members of FDA-regulated industries when they experience problems with the regulatory process,” according to the agency. NMPF is urging the ombudsman’s office to take appropriate action to remedy the FDA’s lax approach to enforcing its own rules on the use of dairy terms on products containing no dairy ingredients, which have proven impacts on public health – a new phase of advocacy brought about by the agency’s regrettable inaction. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other organizations have offered evidence of nutritional deficiencies caused by confusion over the contents of plant-based versus dairy beverages.

NMPF last year released its own road map offering solutions to how public health, product integrity and free speech could be protected through updated regulations. NMPF also supports the DAIRY PRIDE Act, a potential legislative prod for FDA action, and has asked FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn to follow up on the pledge he made nearly one year ago to make fake-dairy labeling a high-priority issue at FDA.

Dairy Defined: An Open Letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Dear Dr. Hahn –

Sorry to bother you at such a busy time, but we need to talk. We’re guessing that 2020 wasn’t what you expected, dealing with COVID vaccines and a host of other pressing concerns. It’s been crazy for us too. But faith and friends can help you through, no matter how big or small the troubles may be. We hope you’ve felt supported through these challenging times.

We’ve noticed that recently, FDA has been getting more active on topics beyond COVID-19, in some cases even revisiting issues that have lain dormant from previous decades in the spirit of completing unfinished business. That made us think it was time to remind you about something you promised you’d deal with back in November, before everything turned upside down. At your FDA confirmation hearing, Senator Tammy Baldwin asked you whether and when FDA under your leadership would soon start enforcing labeling standards that reserve dairy terms for real dairy products, not the plant-based imposters that are posing an increasing problem for public health. You said you supported “clear, transparent, and understandable labeling for the American people” and that you would “very much” look into it.

How is that going? Any way we could help? We understand that FDA has kicked fake dairy deception down the road for decades, but the problem is only growing, public-health experts are growing concerned, and it isn’t a heavy lift for the FDA to do what’s not only true to its mission but also what’s legally required. In fact, we have provided an entire road map proposal that offers a clear guide to resolution – one that is well-grounded in First Amendment law, would ensure that consumers know what products are and aren’t nutritionally, and even could allow plant-based “milks” to continue dairy terms in some instances, with proper qualifiers that have long been established in FDA regulations to clearly distinguish them from dairy.

We had been very hopeful, based on your pledge, that this would be the year this problem could finally be solved. Since it’s late in 2020 – and who knows what the next few months might be like? — we thought we should check in.

We’re cheering for you to take action. FDA commissioner is never an easy job, and 2020’s been a challenge for the ages. But since fake milk has long been crucially important to dairy farmers – in places like Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Minnesota, and all across the United States – we thought this might be a good time to remind you of this promise.

We’re happy to chat further because this simple matter can be resolved soon, to the benefit of everyone. Well, maybe not marketers of dishonest products, but they’ve had their day. Say hi to everyone at FDA for us, there’s never enough bandwidth on Zoom to talk to everyone we’d like to. Good luck with the rest of the year!

With Regards,

The National Milk Producers Federation