As foreign governments implement measures to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, the NMPF trade team closely works with the US. Dairy Export Council in monitoring any action that could negatively impact dairy trade. On March 26, Mexico’s Ministry of Health issued a decree announcing a halt to all administrative operations, including the issuance of import permits from March 26 through April 19 – the first direct, major threat of disruption to U.S. dairy trade caused by coronavirus measures, as dairy products require import permits to enter the market.  

 

Outreach to contacts in Mexico suggested that the Mexican Ministry of Health had not considered the full ramifications of this decree, including the impact it would have on trade and food supplies to Mexico. NMPF’s trade policy team, working closely with USDEC Regulatory team and USDEC’s Mexico office, immediately contacted the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office (USTR) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to urge aggressive action to secure clarification on the issue and preserve trade continuity. In addition, NMPF staff drew on their contacts in the Mexican government to raise alarm bells about the consequences of this new policy.  

 

While at press time the issue had yet to be fully resolved, these actions have generated encouraging steps in the right direction: the Mexico government issued a directive on March 31 that categorized the food and beverage sector as an essential industry that must remain working throughout the outbreak. The trade policy team has continued to collaborate with USTR and USDA, as well as with our colleagues at USDEC, to ensure that this directive extends to the issuance of import permits so that dairy trade with Mexico remains uninterrupted.  

 

As that situation develops, trade policy staff has been closely monitoring other possible market access restrictions as a result of the pandemic. While government efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 domestically evolve daily, NMPF is actively assessing these responses to determine effects on major dairy sectors and international trade flows.   

 

Earlier this year, lost trade was the initial coronavirus concern, as the virus’s spread in Asian markets were the first impacts felt on U.S. producers early in 2020. As restrictions spread worldwide and have profoundly altered the U.S. economy, NMPF is collaborating with domestic and international partners to monitor any additional trade disruptions caused by COVID-19 responses or resulting in border restrictions and workforce limitations worldwide.   

 

NMPF is working alongside the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) to gather data on how the impact of COVID-19 is affecting dairy supply and demand overseas and sharing information with the International Dairy Federation on U.S. COVID-19 response efforts, strengthening NMPF’s ability to respond to a rapidly evolving situation.  

 

For example, personnel issues in Asia that had hindered shipments are being gradually resolved. Consumer response to coronavirus has varied worldwide as well: Some overseas markets have indicated increased demand for milk and dairy products, while others see less. NMPF is tracking closely calls from European dairy stakeholders to initiate private storage aid for butter, skim milk powders, and cheeses, in which the European Commission covers the cost of storage until the product can reenter the market.   

Collaborating with industry partners and NMPF staff, the National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program developed a Coronavirus Prevention and Management Dairy Farmer Handbook for producers released March 19 as the coronavirus crisis took shape. A Spanish-language version followed within a week. Both are posted on the NMPF coronavirus website.

The handbook, developed largely by NMPF Vice President of Sustainability and Scientific Affairs Jamie Jonker, provides an overview of COVID-19, including symptoms, preventive measures, and action steps that employers can take on-farm for their employees. A major goal of the handbook is to help ensure business continuity, with best practices to prevent illness on the farm and manage any dairy-farm disruptions that might result from employee sickness or supply-chain disruptions, Emily Yeiser Stepp, vice president of the FARM Program, said in an NMPF podcast released shortly after the document was published.

Despite the unique challenges that coronavirus presents to a program that’s been based on person-to-person contact, “in agriculture, in our industries, we figure things out,” said Yeiser Stepp in an NMPF podcast March 24. “And that is the beauty of being part of this community, is that we will figure out how to do this in the most effective manner that provides those assurances long-term,” Yeiser Stepp said. “We’re all in this together.”

FARM also has managed the coronavirus threat by adapting its rigorous inspection and evaluation programs by following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations regarding social distancing and immediately adjusting its operations. FARM strongly recommends that program participants (cooperatives and processors) do the same. These adjustments will be reevaluated weekly based on the latest CDC recommendations.

The FARM Program recommends:

1. Temporary suspension of all on-farm operations of the program.
2. All in-person evaluator or trainer trainings scheduled should be cancelled and rescheduled for a later date.
3. Any farm tours for customers/brands or the general public should be cancelled and rescheduled for a later date.

FARM also has developed a short, confidential five-to-ten-minute survey requesting additional information on the impact of COVID-19 on dairy operations to help in better understanding and assisting with farm needs. The survey can be completed by following this link. Any information that can be provided is important and will not be disclosed publicly.

Disruptions across the entire food supply chain have been hard to avoid as COVID-19 worries have spread the United States. NMPF has responded with tools for dairy producers and processors – and a position of leadership across the entire food sector through its involvement in a private-sector collaboration with federal authorities.

Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Staff Counsel, Clay Detlefsen, is the private-sector chair of the Food and Agricultural Sector Coordinating Council, which was developed after Sept. 11 terror attacks to maintain secure, functioning, resilient critical infrastructure in the United States. In that role Detlefsen has been working across agriculture to address supply-chain issues throughout the country, including initial runs on grocery items including milk in stores. Detlefsen urged consumers to stay measured in their buying.

“There is plenty of food in this country. There is no food shortage,” said Detlefsen in an NMPF podcast on March 19. “We have a bit of a distribution problem caused largely by consumers, in essence, over-consuming.”

In his role with the council Detlefsen has been invaluable to supply-chain coordination with the government, including the Department of Homeland Security’s recognition on March 19 of farm workers, food manufacturers, firms supporting food, feed and beverage distribution, animal agriculture workers, and others, as critical infrastructure employees.

The reaffirmation of agriculture’s crucial economic role allows it to operate as normal while other sectors may be forced to suspend work. Complementing the efforts Detlefsen led, NMPF has also developed an Essential Food and Agricultural Employee Work Permit Template to be used by food and agriculture employees to be granted permission to travel to and from work.

After concerns arose about potential plant closings should workers test positive for COVID-19, food industry professionals developed a document describing what should be done when an employee or customer tests positive for COVID-19. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are in the process of reviewing the document before it is posted on their websites. The recommendations are focused on how to keep employees safe without having to shut down an entire plant given FDA has repeatedly stated that food safety is not a concern when it comes to COVID-19 transmission.

MPF has also been working with other agriculture organizations and federal agencies on shaping guidance documents and influencing regulatory actions. One example: On March 26, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a statement announcing it will be using enforcement discretion in several areas for noncompliance issues during the pandemic. This decision comes after NMPF and other livestock groups including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and National Pork Producers Council sent a letter requesting they issue a “no action assurance” given the “unusual circumstances” we are facing.

Finally, NMPF has been in a leadership role with government and industry stakeholders looking for solutions to shortages of cleaners and disinfectants, hand sanitizers and personal protective equipment and the regulatory team is in constant contact with the federal agencies to ensure dairy farmer needs are being met.

Dairy futures markets became significantly more volatile in March as they struggled to estimate the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the dairy industry. But broader certainties are clear: The effects will be negative, and they will be large.

Markets in early March indicated the U.S. all-milk price would average about $18.50 per cwt. during 2020, just below the 2019 average of $18.60 per cwt. Since then, the futures-based 2020 average price estimate dropped sharply, rebounded a bit, then resumed dropping, to about $17.20/cwt. on March 26.

The USDA DMC Decision Tool, which can be accessed online, has followed a similar trajectory. By March 25, it was projecting that the program would make payments for margin coverage at $9.50 per cwt every month from March through the end of 2020, as shown in the chart below, with payments averaging $0.73/cwt., before premium payments, for the entire year.

The dramatically shifting outlook means a radically different margin situation than what producers anticipated last December, the deadline for farmer signup for the 2020 DMC program. USDA forecasters then expected monthly margins to remain above $10.00/cwt. during all months of 2020, which translated to no payments at any level of coverage.

The rosier outlook discouraged signups. Only 47.8 percent of operations with established DMC production histories are signed up for the 2020 DMC, in contrast to the 82.3 percent of operations with established production histories that signed up for the program for 2019, a year of significant payments. That discrepancy in turn has become a driver of NMPF efforts to aid producers — in its March 24 letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, NMPF requested reopened enrollment for this year’s program, a measure made appropriate by the unprecedented nature of the coronavirus situation.

The DMC information page on NMPF’s website offers a variety of educational resources to help farmers make better use of the program.

As Congress attempted to navigate the national response to COVID-19 by passing three coronavirus response packages in March, all of which became law, NMPF’s government affairs team worked to ensure dairy-farmer needs were top of mind in agriculture-related provisions of the new laws, gaining success on several fronts.

A crucial advance came with the March 27 passage of a massive, $2 trillion stimulus bill approved on March 27 that creates a $9.5 billion coronavirus agricultural disaster fund that specifically includes dairy among the producers targeted for aid. The bill also provides $14 billion in additional funding for the Commodity Credit Corporation that USDA can use to assist producers in various ways. Finally, the measure aids small businesses, a key link in the entire dairy supply chain.

“We are very grateful that Congress understands the significant economic challenges our farmers face and is rising to that challenge on a bipartisan basis,” Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF, said of the package, the third – but not the last – congressional coronavirus bill. “Dairy farmers have worked 24/7 to produce safe, affordable, and nutritious products for families throughout the coronavirus crisis, even as their own economic outlook grows darker.”

The specific attention to dairy – thanks in large part to the bipartisan attention from lawmakers ranging from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, to Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow, to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson and Representative Glenn “GT” Thompson – was encouraged and aided by the work of NMPF government relations staffers Paul Bleiberg and Claudia Larson, who coordinated with other NMPF staff and across the dairy community to work with lawmakers on dairy’s behalf.

With Washington policymakers working around the clock, many from home, “it’s kind of like, what day is a weekend, what day is a weekday. But we’ve been having many conversations on Capitol Hill, on the House side, on the Senate side, folks in USDA,” said Bleiberg, NMPF’s vice president for government relations, in an NMPF podcast. “And of course, with our own membership, because everybody is worried about the situation, everybody wants to know what’s going to happen here because people have to get answers.”

Beyond the main stimulus bill, the second coronavirus package that passed Congress included additional funding and flexibility for nutrition programs — specifically, an additional $1.2 billion for nutrition programs. It also allows states and USDA to waive administrative requirements for SNAP and WIC as well as group-setting meal requirements for school meal and adult and childcare meal programs. The first aid plan was relatively smaller and did not address agriculture.

The NMPF government affairs team continues to work closely with both chambers of Congress and USDA, encouraging additional actions that help ensure dairy producers and workers continue to feed Americans without interruption and that families facing food insecurity have access to nutritious food, including the healthy milk many have access to most readily through nutrition programs. It’s also closely coordinating with government affairs staff from other cooperatives and dairy organizations and actively seeking feedback and ideas from members, including by leading a conference call with NMPF communications staff that included cooperative government relations and communications representatives.

NMPF will continue its multi-front approach to best address dairy’s needs and looks forward to working with Congress and the Trump Administration on additional responses anticipated in coming weeks.

Chris Galen, senior vice president for membership services and strategic initiatives at the National Milk Producers Federation, says dairy farmers need effective policy advocacy in Washington as the economic effects of coronavirus are dealt with for months, in both anticipated and unanticipated ways.

“This is a really challenging time because the COVID-19 outbreak is affecting every single aspect of our society,” Galen said in a podcast today. “In dairy, we saw prices finally begin to rise at the end of last year after a prolonged trough. There’s a lot of economic stress on the farm, and then this seems like it’s adding insult to injury.

“It’s doubly important that we advocate for the economic interests of our members because the typical dairy farmer, he’s really, she’s really at the end of their rope at the end of the last few years. And now we have to deal with the great unknown of how long the recession that’s caused by the virus is going to continue.”

To listen to the full podcast, click here. You can also find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,  SoundCloud and Google Play. Broadcast outlets may use the MP3 file. Please attribute information to NMPF.

The National Milk Producers Federation’s coronavirus webpage has added key guidance documents for agricultural employers in the wake of recent legislation and also expanded its Spanish-language resources to meet member needs as farmer economic and workforce situations rapidly evolve.

Under “Guidance for Employers,” the site includes materials from the Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Small Business Administration and others that will help agricultural employers navigate complex workforce matters. Meanwhile, documents important to both employers and employees, including NMPF’s Dairy Farmer Handbook on Coronavirus Prevention and Management, are being made available in Spanish, ensuring that essential information is available across all facets of dairy production.

“Dairy farms are built on high-quality workforces that are responding to the nation’s need for dairy products 24 hours a day, seven days a week at an extremely challenging time. We know that employers have questions, and we are doing our best to help address them,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation, the largest U.S. dairy-farmer group. “We also know that many U.S. dairies and their supply chains are built on the labor of hard-working, highly skilled Spanish-speaking workers. The resources we are making available make certain that everyone throughout dairy is better-equipped to manage this crisis.”

NMPF’s increased efforts in workforce guidance predate coronavirus, through the National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program’s Workforce Development initiative. More on that program may be found here.

In response to President Donald Trump’s signing of the CARES Act addressing the coronavirus crisis, National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) President and CEO Jim Mulhern offered the following statement:

“We thank President Trump for quickly signing this measure into law. It will provide much-needed help to dairy producers, who are experiencing steep drops in milk and dairy-product prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With the CARES Act now law, we look forward to working with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on several important initiatives, including the need for a significant purchase of multiple dairy products. These efforts will be important to address sales lost because of COVID-19, lift farm milk prices and send a critical signal to disrupted dairy markets. Government dairy-product purchases will provide our food banks with an important, nutritious and popular staple item that will help feed families in need.”

In response to the House of Representatives approving the Senate’s sweeping response to the coronavirus crisis, National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) President and CEO Jim Mulhern offered the following statement:

“Congress’s forceful, bipartisan action to take unprecedented steps to combat the economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis is a balm to dairy producers who have endured brutal weeks and may do so in the weeks ahead. We again thank all members who worked hard to produce this bipartisan response package.

“We have no doubt the president, whose support was essential to making this assistance become law, will sign it as soon as possible. When he does, dairy will be applauding with the rest of the country at the powerful support shown for agriculture and the American people. And NMPF will be eager to assist in its implementation to ensure that dairy farmers receive needed relief from the ongoing market disruption.”

NMPF Chief Economist Peter Vitaliano discusses the challenges dairy farmers will face as supply chains adjust to coronavirus-related disruptions in an interview for a television news package on dairy that RFD-TV is producing to air next week. RFD provided NMPF with the full interview, in which Vitaliano explains how sold-out dairy cases and lower milk prices can exist at the same time and how various federal assistance proposals could work economically. Listen now here.

A massive coronavirus aid package poised to pass Congress that includes crucial assistance to dairy producers is a critical, but likely not the last, step in assisting sectors hard-hit by economic disruptions, said Paul Bleiberg, NMPF’s vice president for government relations, in an NMPF podcast.

“There are absolutely going to be further legislative efforts,” Bleiberg said. “Congress may take a recess for a couple of weeks, maybe around the Easter recess, and it may be a little bit longer than it normally is, but I think that work behind the scenes is going to continue.”

Bleiberg breaks down how provisions in the aid package will benefit dairy producers, as well as other federal efforts to assist the entire dairy supply chain, in the full podcast here. You can also find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,  SoundCloud and Google Play. Broadcast outlets may use the MP3 file. Please attribute information to NMPF.

The National Milk Producers Federation commended members of Congress for successfully crafting a bipartisan package to provide support and relief during the coronavirus pandemic to all Americans, including dairy and other agricultural producers who are working night and day to provide a steady, safe supply of food to consumers nationwide.

“Dairy farmers have worked 24/7 to produce safe, affordable, and nutritious products for families throughout the coronavirus crisis, even as their own economic outlook grows darker,” said Jim Mulhern, President and CEO of NMPF, the largest organization of U.S. dairy farmers. “Forecasts for milk prices have dropped significantly in the past month, with greater declines possible as the COVID-19 outbreak continues. We are very grateful that Congress understands the significant economic challenges our farmers face and is rising to that challenge on a bipartisan basis.”

Congress is expected to pass quickly the Senate’s coronavirus relief package, released today. The measure creates a $9.5 billion coronavirus agricultural disaster fund that specifically includes livestock and dairy producers, as well as critical assistance to small businesses that are a key link in the entire dairy supply chain. This essential funding will boost finances – and morale – at a crucial time, given the likelihood of widespread economic damage that may affect consumer demand and international trade. The bill also provides $14 billion in additional funding for the Commodity Credit Corporation that USDA can use to assist producers.

“We commend the bipartisan Senate negotiations that produced this outcome. We especially wish to thank Senators Chuck Schumer and Debbie Stabenow for ensuring that dairy farmers will receive significant support,” Mulhern said. “Their work greatly improved this bill. We look forward to its passage.”

NMPF is also grateful to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson for putting forward multiple dairy provisions in the House of Representatives that will be helpful as the coronavirus-driven economic situation evolves, and to Rep. Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson for his ongoing advocacy and work during this challenging process.

NMPF also commended Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for his Department’s proactive, ongoing work to help agriculture manage the impacts of COVID-19. “Secretary Perdue and his team have worked tirelessly to assist dairy and all of agriculture as we deal with the challenges of this pandemic by taking actions across the scope of the agency to provide flexibility and assistance. We are very thankful for their collaboration,” Mulhern said.

NMPF looks forward to working with Congress and the Trump Administration on the additional legislative and administrative responses that are anticipated in upcoming weeks.