Last month, NMPF joined the Center for Food Integrity and the U.S. pork sector to jointly launch "See It? Stop It!SM Animal care starts with you," a proactive demonstration of agriculture’s commitment to farm animal care. The initiative empowers, and in fact, demands that if signs of animal abuse, neglect, mishandling or harm are witnessed, anyone working on a farm or in a farm setting has an obligation to report it immediately.

Though it is uncommon, when animal abuse, neglect, harm or mistreatment takes place, it is essential to give animal care providers resources to swiftly report what they witness. The "See It? Stop It!" initiative provides several options to enable employees to speak up to stop animal abuse. Ultimately, empowering animal caretakers and giving them responsibility to report animal abuse immediately will help assure the best care for animals.

Betsy Flores, NMPF’s Senior Director of Animal Health and Welfare, stated, "Care of animals could not be more important to farmers. Having a system in place to contact any of several authorities is imperative, and ‘See it? Stop it!’ provides that resource. This initiative combines well with the dairy industry’s National Dairy FARM Program: Farmers Assuring Responsible Management^TM to ensure the well-being of animals in our care."

The initiative demonstrates to the public that farmers are committed to good animal care and calls on anyone who witnesses abuse to stop it immediately. This includes those who are on farms to videotape animal production activities. Additional information about the program, including an employer checklist, guidance for integrating the program into existing animal well-being programs, posters for use in barns and guidance on employee training is available at www.SeeItStopIt.org.

The dairy industry’s animal care program has achieved an important milestone, with 70 percent of the nation’s milk now participating in the program. With the recent addition of several major cooperatives in the National Dairy FARM Program (Farmers Assuring Responsible ManagementTM), more than two-thirds of the nation’s cows will be covered by the industry’s animal well-being effort, according to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF).

NMPF started the FARM program three years ago to provide a consistent, national, verifiable means of showing consumers and the food value chain how dairy products are produced. The number of cooperatives and processors subscribing to the program has continued to grow, and now includes farms producing 70% of America’s milk supply.

“Consumers and customers don’t expect perfection, but they do expect us to collectively demonstrate our industry’s responsible practices and our commitment to quality animal care,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “I’m proud of the ongoing progress our farmers are making by working to implement the FARM program’s guidelines on their own operations.”

In addition to the positive development in the level of participation in the program, Kozak said that the FARM program’s guidelines, contained in the National Dairy FARM Animal Care Manual, are in the final stages of an extensive review and revision process. After nearly a year of consultation throughout the industry, with farmers, veterinary experts, and cooperative staff, the three year-old animal care manual will be revised slightly to reflect the latest knowledge and best practices about proper dairy animal care. Revisions to the animal observation component also relied on analysis of over 360,000 animal observations collected through on-farm evaluations for FARM program over the last three years.

If the NMPF Board approves the revisions in June, the newly-revised manual will be made available on the FARM website at www.nationaldairyfarm.com.

As international negotiations continue on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), NMPF continued its efforts last month to maximize opportunities for U.S. dairy farmers in the pending trade agreement. First, NMPF helped coordinate a letter signed by 36 Senators and sent to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and acting U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis. The March 15th letter to Vilsack and Marantis urges their agencies to pay particular attention during the TPP discussions to efforts to expand trade with Canada, and mitigate the impact of dairy exports from New Zealand.

“Without open access to Canada and absent significant policy reform by New Zealand, the dairy industry in our states strongly believes that the TPP promise of growth in export demand for U.S. dairy all but vanishes, and that in its place, they could see significant losses here at home,” the letter stated. “To be truly effective, dairy discussions with Canada should include a focus not only on removing tariffs but also on ensuring that various forms of nontariff barriers are not employed to hinder U.S. dairy exports.”

In a related development, NMPF was one of more than 70 organizations that jointly sent a letter March 26th to President Obama in support of Japan’s participation in the TPP negotiations.

“The addition of Japan to the negotiations will exponentially increase the importance of the TPP to U.S. farmers and ranchers, processors and exporters as well as other sectors of the U.S. economy. Furthermore, it will spur interest in the TPP among other countries in Asia and Latin America. Finally, it will send a strong signal to other nations that efforts to negotiate are more open and transparent,” the NMPF letter said. Japan is the fifth-largest dairy export market for the U.S.

March was the most active month in the first quarter of 2013 for Cooperatives Working Together (CWT), with 196 requests from member cooperatives for export assistance. It was also the top month in the first three months of 2013 in terms of bids accepted (103) and pounds of butter receiving export assistance (24.9 million pounds). In addition, assistance was provided on 16.9 million pounds of American-type cheeses and 44,092 pounds of anhydrous milk fat (AMF).

The March activity brought the total amount of CWT-assisted exports in the first quarter of 2013 to 47 million pounds of cheese, 46.5 million pounds of butter, 44,092 pounds of AMF and 218,258 pounds of whole milk powder. The products will go to 30 countries on six continents.

These exports are equal to 1.45 billion pounds of milk production on a milkfat basis. That meant CWT-assisted exports in just the first quarter of 2013 covered 90% of the USDA projected increase in milk production in 2013 for the entire year.

Because a significant portion of the amount budgeted to assist butterfat exports has been committed, effective immediately, CWT is limiting the butter bids it will consider for export assistance to the target areas in the business plan – the Middle East and North Africa. In addition, until further notice, CWT will no longer consider bids for export assistance on AMF. This will allow CWT to make the most effective use of the remaining funds available.

Across the board cuts to federal spending known as “sequestration” began to be implemented on March 2. These cuts, enacted by Congress as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, apply to nearly all of the farm programs operated by USDA.

While many questions remain about the implementation of the cuts, one immediate result was the suspension of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) monthly Milk Production reports, and the annual Milk Production, Disposition and Income report. NMPF sent a letter to USDA on March 14, citing the importance of these reports to dairy farmers, and requesting that Secretary Tom Vilsack restore publication of the reports.

In response to NMPF’s criticisms, NASS said last Wednesday that it will compile a partial monthly production report. The use of various administrative data to establish the monthly estimates of milk production will provide a consistent estimation process across all states and the nation, while maintaining cost savings by not conducting the producer survey, according to NASS.

Another program originally expected to be impacted was the MILC program, but on March 19, Secretary Vilsack officially notified Congress that he intends to use his authority to reduce direct payments (due to be paid to producers by Oct 1, 2013) by not more than 8.5% in order to fully fund programs such as MILC. This authority cannot be enacted until 30 days after congressional notification. It is important to note that direct payments would have been subject to cuts of 5.1% as a result of sequestration regardless of this action by the Secretary. These additional cuts to direct payments avoid having the more than 350,000 producers who had already received disaster, SURE, NAP and MILC payments this year to repay some of those funds. Additionally, no additional cuts to MILC will be made as a result of sequestration.

NMPF and the Agriculture Workforce Coalition remain closely engaged in efforts to ensure that legislation being drafted in both the House and Senate reflects the needs of dairy farmers. While no final legislative package has been completed in either the House or Senate, NMPF was pleased with the direction of negotiations on the issues of greatest importance to dairy farmers: protecting the current workforce and securing a future flow for workers to fill the dairy industry’s employment needs. While agreement on a broad framework that addresses these two issues is of the utmost importance, issues such wages, labor standards, and limits on the number of future foreign workers must also be addressed. The Senate may announce the outlines of a deal this week, when Congress returns to Washington after a two-week recess.

Recent developments on a potential deal on the issue of low-skilled, non-agricultural workers have further highlighted the challenges that remain for various aspects of immigration reform, including agriculture. This debate has revolved around the challenge of determining both a wage for foreign workers and deciding whether a cap should be in place on bringing in future workers, and, if so, how is that cap determined. NMPF is committed to ensuring that dairy farmers have access to a workforce that meets their needs, and that the costs of employing such a workforce are manageable for businesses. Other challenges regarding whether current undocumented individuals should be given citizenship or be granted some other form of legal status also must be addressed by members of Congress in any package.

As the effort to pass a farm bill continues this spring on Capitol Hill, NMPF’s Board of Directors recently reaffirmed the organization’s support for a new farm bill – containing a better safety net for dairy farmers – at the Federation’s spring meeting last month.

The Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to begin a legislative markup of the farm bill, perhaps as soon as this month. NMPF’s Board signaled both the Senate and House Agriculture Committees that the dairy producer community remains committed to the voluntary dairy program known as the Dairy Security Act (DSA), which combines margin insurance with market stabilization.

“Our members went through a tough year in 2012, with high feed costs and low milk prices putting the squeeze on farmers across the country,” said Randy Mooney, Chairman of NMPF, and a dairy farmer from Rogersville, Missouri. “Existing federal dairy programs don’t offer the type of safety net our members need, but the Dairy Security Act does.”

NMPF members met last month with Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, who is the lead sponsor of the DSA in the House. Peterson reiterated his commitment to passing the DSA, and indicated that the House Agriculture Committee is expected to begin work on a farm bill this spring, likely after the Senate ag panel works on its own farm bill version.

ROCHESTER, MINN. – Milk prices for Midwest dairy farmers would have been more than $1.00 per hundredweight higher last year if the proposed federal Dairy Security Act (DSA) program had been available to them, a national dairy industry official told cooperative farm leaders gathered here Wednesday for the Minnesota-Wisconsin Dairy Policy Conference.

Jim Mulhern, Chief Operating Officer for the National Milk Producers Federation and a Wisconsin native, said a farmer with 200 cows, who purchased margin coverage at a level of $6.50 per hundredweight, would have received more than $44,000 in additional payments in 2012 under the Dairy Security Act that is now pending before Congress.

“The DSA was designed for the type of conditions we experienced last year: high feed costs and weak farm milk prices. If DSA had been in effect, dairy farmers who chose to participate in the program would have received margin insurance payments to cover increased costs and would have had to make only small reductions in milk output under DSA’s market stabilization program,” Mulhern said. “The net increase in farm revenue at the $6.50 margin coverage level would have averaged more than $200 per cow for the year,” he said. “This is income that would not have been received by a farmer if they weren’t in the program.”

The Dairy Security Act was approved by both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees during consideration of last year’s farm bill. The full Senate also approved the bill, but the House failed to vote on the farm bill last year, so Congress is now beginning efforts to pass a farm bill this year.

Mulhern said the Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to begin work on a new farm bill later this month, and the House Agriculture Committee likely will follow later this spring.

“I believe Congress will pass a farm bill this year, and when all the dust settles, DSA will be the dairy program in the final bill,” he said. “Congress will adopt the DSA because it is the only program that truly provides an effective safety net without busting the budget.

“The plan’s combination of affordable margin insurance and a stabilization program to quickly send production signals to producers when market prices are falling is specifically designed to protect both farmers and taxpayers,” Mulhern said.

A margin insurance-only alternative proposed by milk processors is irresponsible, Mulhern said, because it would create price-depressing milk surpluses and potentially cost billions of dollars.

“It would be terrible for our industry to enact a margin insurance-only program that guaranteed processors access to cheap milk by encouraging excess milk production, but that is exactly what some have proposed. An insurance-only program is dangerous because, by insulating producers through insurance payments, it actually prevents market signals from getting through,” he said.

Mulhern added that realistic insurance rates under a margin-only program would have to be much higher than those proposed in the Dairy Security Act in order to cover a greater portion of the cost of such a program.

“We are able to keep the insurance rates affordable under the DSA because the market stabilization program will help keep supply and demand in better balance,” he said. “Without stabilization, a margin-only program could become prohibitively expensive for small- and medium-sized producers to participate. That would be damaging here in the Midwest, and throughout the country.”

The National Milk Producers Federation, based in Arlington, VA, develops and carries out policies that advance the well-being of dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. The members of NMPF’s 30 cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S. milk supply, making NMPF the voice of more than 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. Visit www.nmpf.org for more information.

The drumbeat of headline-making announcements about product sourcing trends in the food industry continues:  restaurant chains wanting cage-free eggs; pizza chains wanting gestation stall-free pork; supermarkets only selling sustainable seafood; Whole Foods labeling all GMO ingredients.  Each of these developments adds to a growing chorus of concerns putting added pressure back up the food chain, ultimately at the front gate of farmers, ranchers and fishermen.

Fortunately, there’s another bit of good news of late on this issue:  the National Dairy FARM program has reached a participation threshold of 70 percent, meaning nearly three quarters of the nation’s milk supply is enrolled in the nation’s preeminent dairy animal care program.  With the addition of several major cooperatives and proprietary processors in recent months – and thanks to funding from the national dairy checkoff for the third-party verification element in the program – we have a compelling, critical mass of support behind FARM.  And given the trends in the industry, it’s not too soon to reach this mark.

NMPF started the FARM program three years ago to provide a consistent, national, verifiable means of showing consumers and the food value chain how milk is responsibly-harvested from cows.  Even then, the writing was on the wall:  we either had to develop a scalable, uniform program with real teeth and performance metrics in it…or, others entities further down the supply chain would do it themselves.  Farmers, cooperatives and processors would then be looking at having to adopt not just one, but multiple animal care systems, all with similar expectations and goals, but each requiring a different verification methodology and a separate set of paperwork.

The challenge in implementing the FARM program, or any such system that looks at a series of practices on farms, is two-fold:  farmers have to understand and abide with its expectations, while retailers and restaurateurs must appreciate that this approach meets their animal welfare expectations.  We’ve had fair questions raised on both ends of the spectrum during the FARM program’s first three years of operation, but as the program continues to grow, those questions are being successfully addressed.

From the standpoint of farmers, they need to see that the criteria used in the program are based on good veterinary science, are measurable and not arbitrary, and were developed by peers and those who understand what happens on a farm.  That’s why the FARM program’s animal care checklist was the product of a technical working group of such experts, as well as NMPF’s Animal Health and Well-Being Committee, which is made up of dairy producers and veterinarians.

From the standpoint of those companies further down the value chain, dairy product end users don’t expect perfection, but they do expect farmers to collectively demonstrate responsible practices, and our commitment to quality animal care.  They need to see that there is a path for continually improving the care standards in the program.  And there has to be evidence that the program is catching on, which is why reaching the 70% participation level is so critical.

The need for ongoing improvement is a big reason why the program’s animal care guidelines are in the final stages of an extensive review and revision process. After nearly a year of consultation, throughout the industry as well as with external experts, the care manual will be updated with slight revisions later in 2013 to reflect the latest knowledge and best practices about proper dairy animal care.  We’ve learned a great deal about animal care just through the 364,000 animal observations collected through on-farm evaluations for FARM program during the last three years.  All these data points will allow us to adjust slightly the 77 different checklist criteria used on each farm in the program.

I am also pleased that the dairy industry’s Innovation Center has endorsed the National Dairy FARM program as the industry standard.  Because the Center is the leading collaborative platform for U.S. dairy marketers, its adoption of this particular program sends a clear signal that other approaches would only detract from the hard work and momentum that the FARM program has built in the past three years.

We’ve long understood that dairy farmers, by and large, have a vested interest in providing conscientious animal care to their cows.  However, we’re no longer in an era when just talking that talk will satisfy everyone.  This benefit of the FARM program is that it transparently quantifies the care that farmers provide and sets a timeline for their continual improvement.  It shows we’re walking the walk, and that proper animal care is not a finite goal achieved through punishment, but an ongoing process that can be attained through education and effort.

The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) and National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) welcomed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s March 15 official declaration of interest for Japan to join ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks.

“The addition of Japan, the No. 3 economy in the world and a major dairy importer, would dramatically increase the commercial significance of the talks,” says Tom Suber, USDEC president. “Along with Canada’s recent announcement that it will join the talks, Japan’s involvement will add additional potential for greater U.S. dairy exports, which will supplement the opportunities in existing TPP participants’ markets such as Vietnam and Malaysia.”

At the same time, Japan’s enrollment brings with it certain challenges.

Japan’s entry at this stage of the talks has sparked concern that it could slow the pace of negotiations with the potential to delay or derail the ambitious outcome that the current members are seeking.

“As is the case with Canada, Japan is a large and profitable market that could provide immediate and measurable benefits for U.S. dairy producers and processors, but only if negotiators achieve real, tangible market access,” says Jaime Castaneda, senior vice president for strategic initiatives and trade policy, NMPF and USDEC. “Japan would not only need to loosen its restrictive market access scheme, but also liberalize its complex quota system and address non-tariff trade concerns, such as how its food additive approval system currently operates.”

From the beginning, the TPP talks have been about more than just lowering tariffs. USDEC, NMPF and other U.S. agricultural groups have viewed the TPP as an opportunity to defend the right to use common food names in the face of the European Union’s aggressive efforts to confiscate those names through its restrictive geographical indication system.

USDEC and NMPF have also led a broad coalition calling for effective disciplines on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures in TPP negotiations—disciplines that place greater reliance on science-based regulations and are fully enforceable, while also going beyond the World Trade Organization’s SPS Agreement on these and related issues.

“The U.S. dairy industry sees real value in the TPP negotiations if we are able to open new markets, like Japan and Canada, use the TPP process to strengthen global trading rules and secure meaningful competition policy changes in New Zealand’s dairy sector,” says Suber.

Current U.S. dairy trade with Japan speaks volumes about that nation’s potential if barriers are removed. U.S. dairy shipments rose 13 percent to $284 million in 2012, keeping Japan the fifth-largest U.S. market despite prohibitive tariffs and non-tariff barriers in many of the largest dairy categories.

The 16th round of TPP talks just concluded in Singapore; the 17th round is set to take place in May in Lima, Peru. Japan will not likely join the talks until late August. The entry of Japan will expand the TPP group to 12 countries, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Thailand has also expressed interest in joining.

 

The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) is a non-profit, independent membership organization that represents the global trade interests of U.S. dairy producers, proprietary processors and cooperatives, ingredient suppliers and export traders. Its mission is to enhance U.S. global competitiveness and assist the U.S. industry to increase its global dairy ingredient sales and exports of U.S. dairy products. USDEC accomplishes this through programs in market development that build global demand for U.S. dairy products, resolve market access barriers and advance industry trade policy goals. USDEC is supported by staff across the United States and overseas in Mexico, South America, Asia, Middle East and Europe.

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), based in Arlington, VA, develops and carries out policies that advance the well being of dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. The members of NMPF’s 30 cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S. milk supply, making NMPF the voice of more than 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies.

NMPF Also Expresses Concern with Elimination of NASS Monthly Milk Production Report

ARLINGTON, VA – The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) Board of Directors reaffirmed the organization’s support for a new farm bill, containing a better safety net for dairy farmers, at the Federation’s spring meeting Tuesday in Arlington.

With the Senate Agriculture Committee expected to begin work on a new farm bill next month, NMPF’s leadership said this week that a new, voluntary dairy program known as the Dairy Security Act (DSA), which combines margin insurance with market stabilization, remains critical to the future of the industry.

“Our members went through a tough year in 2012, with high feed costs and low milk prices putting the squeeze on farmers across the country,” said Randy Mooney, Chairman of NMPF, and a dairy farmer from Rogersville, Missouri. “Existing federal dairy programs don’t offer the type of safety net our members need, but the Dairy Security Act does.”

Mooney said that NMPF members were encouraged by a report delivered to them Monday from Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, who reaffirmed his support for the DSA and indicated that the House agriculture panel also will begin work on a farm bill this spring.

In another development Tuesday affecting NMPF and its members, the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service announced that it will suspend the monthly milk production report for the remainder of fiscal year 2013, as a result of sequestration-reduced funding.

The monthly milk production report for February’s milk output will come out next Tuesday, but the next six reports for April through September will be suspended, as will the Milk Production, Disposition and Income (Milk PDI) reports previously scheduled for release next month.

NMPF President and CEO Jerry Kozak said that, “Eliminating the USDA’s monthly milk production report through September will detrimentally affect how decisions are made about the marketing of milk, starting at, but not ending with, the farm level.”

“This report is important for ongoing industry outlook purposes, and it’s also an essential input for estimating the monthly commercial disappearance of all dairy products, which is of importance to the dairy promotion program,” Kozak said.

He noted that among the other NASS report suspensions, “Dairy is the only major commodity that will be substantially affected. The July Cattle report consists of a mid-year update of the January Cattle report, which is obviously not affected by the current fiscal year suspension, and other NASS reports will continue to report non-dairy cattle inventory information.”

“This decision is a concern to NMPF as well as to the entire dairy industry, and we will need to have further discussions with USDA about why an extremely important informational tool involving a major commodity is being affected this way.”

 

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), based in Arlington, VA, develops and carries out policies that advance the well being of dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. The members of NMPF’s 30 cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S. milk supply, making NMPF the voice of more than 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies.

This week, NMPF released its 2012 Activities and Accomplishments Report, which recounts the organization’s various achievements throughout the past year. The report covers important issues such as dairy policy reform and the Farm Bill, tax and budget, food safety, nutrition, animal care, and trade. It also highlights activities of the NMPF membership, featuring the board of directors, member cooperatives, and Young Cooperators. The report will be distributed at NMPF’s board of directors meeting next week.

The report is available electronically on the NMPF website. Please contact Sarah Olson to request hard copies of the report.