NMPF’s annual cheese contest, held in conjunction with its annual meeting, has evolved from a quality-improvement initiative to a showcase of some of the world’s top cheeses, as produced by NMPF member cooperatives. RFD-TV goes behind the scenes to talk with cheese judges, contest coordinators and winners to show how the contest — which now features other dairy products — encourages the best in NMPF co-ops, and the best in cheesemaking as well.
Tag: dairy cooperatives
NMPF Chairman Mooney Discusses Dairy’s Strength Through Consensus
NMPF Board of Directors Chairman Randy Mooney of Dairy Farmers of America explains the organization’s role as the essential advocate for dairy farmers in Washington and how the organization works with other groups to advance industry prosperity in an interview with RFD-TV. Mooney also talks about what challenges the industry faces and how resilience is the key to future success. The segment also highlights Prairie Farms’ overall win in this year’s NMPF cheese contest.
Overcoming challenges is what we do
By Randy Mooney, Chairman, NMPF Board of Directors
We’ve had a lot of achievements this year, but it’s also been a challenging time.
A year ago, costs on the farm were extremely high, but we had prices that would cover that. This year, costs are still high, but prices are down. That’s a lot of stress on the farm. And we’re also dealing with problems that we’ve dealt with for years.
There are labor problems; you just can’t find anybody to work. Supply chain disruptions are closer to the farm this year. It’s milk trucks getting milk off the farm; it’s feed trucks bringing feed into the farm. It’s getting simple parts that we took for granted we could get anytime we wanted to. There are geopolitical issues and extreme weather events.
We have challenges all the time, but it just seems like we continue to have more. It seems like we’re in the eye of a storm. But as farmers, we always anticipate a moment before the dawn, before things turn, before things get good again.
One of the things I’ve learned is that a lot of the world is envious of what we have.
They’re envious because we have the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program, a self-governing program. We have a government that recognizes what we’re doing with sustainability — it’s not being mandated down from the top.
We’re taking care of our own. Today, we produce more milk using fewer and fewer natural resources. We’re revitalizing rural communities. For every dollar generated in dairy farming, it turns over three to seven times in local communities, generating $750 billion in the United States. That‘s pretty impressive.
We’re nourishing families around the world through milk’s unbeatable nutritional value. I’ve dairy farmed for a long time, through good times and bad times, but there’s never been a time that I haven’t laid my head down on my pillow at night and been proud of what I accomplished on my farm. We’re putting the most nourishing, most nutritious product known to man in that milk tank. And when that truck leaves, I know I’ve done something good.
Our ability to evolve how we work and adapt our resiliency is becoming more and more important. This year, we came together as an industry to unite around issues that helped build that resiliency. NMPF worked with member co-ops, farm bureaus, and state dairy organizations to come to consensus on the most substantial issues. Even going back to 2021, when you talk about Federal Milk Marketing Order modernization, we’ve worked hard to get these things done. Nobody knows what the outcome’s going to be, but you telling your story has made a difference.
Beyond that, we’re going to get a farm bill passed — we’re going have an extension. We’ve been working to implement the next version of FARM, FARM 5.0, that goes into effect in July. We also will work on promoting dairy’s sustainable nutrition. Dairy offers the most complete nutritional package available, and what’s amazing is that as we produce more milk, we’ll continue to use fewer natural resources. That’s the definition of sustainable nutrition.
For years, we’ve talked about sustainability in terms of environmental stewardship and how that translates into financial value for farms. Now, the financial values are there. You take solar panels, wind, methane digesters, and a lot of things happen on a farm that’s generating electricity to run your farms and to run your neighbor’s households. We’re there now. What we need is conservation funding in the farm bill through USDA grants through state and federal programs. There’s real money available to help us continue to do that, and we will.
No imitation food from a nut, a bean, or grain can hold a candle to dairy’s nutritional package. We all know that. That’s why it’s important to keep fighting the fight on plant-based alternative labeling. In the guidance that was issued earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognized and admitted that plant-based alternatives are nutritionally inferior to real dairy.
Dairy protein plays a critical role in feeding people around the world, and it can’t be replaced by alternatives, including plant-based. Consumers have the right to understand how they’re nourishing their families, and we’re going to continue to advocate for the Dairy PRIDE Act to try to get that passed in Congress.
We’re going to continue to fight for more flavored milk in schools and higher fat levels, especially for those children whose main source of nutrition is through the school milk program. Milk is essential to their diets, and we’re not going to give up that fight. We’re all part of an industry that’s doing remarkable things. We are winning.
This has been adapted from Chairman of the NMPF Board of Directors Randy Mooney’s speech at the National Milk Producers Federation annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., on Nov. 14, 2023. This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on Nov. 22, 2023.
NMPF’s Bjerga on the Return of the FMMO Hearing
NMPF Executive Vice President of Communications & Industry Relations Alan Bjerga speaks on WEKZ Radio, Janesville, WI, about the resumption of USDA’s Federal Milk Marketing Order hearing in Carmel, IN, next week. The hearing, which was originally expected to last until mid-October, may now slip into 2024. Scheduling issues and unexpected confrontations are pushing back the timeline for the necessary modernization many farmers are hoping can take effect to help their operations thrive, Bjerga said.
NMPF’s Doud Discusses Dairy’s Future
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.
Preview of Upcoming NMPF 2023 Annual Meeting in Orlando
NMPF’s senior vice president Chris Galen discusses the upcoming 2023 NMPF annual meeting starting Nov. 12 in Florida.
FMMO Hearing Shows Strength of Co-ops
USDA’s Federal Milk Marketing Order hearing in Carmel, IN, is providing the dairy industry with mountains of valuable information and insight that goes well beyond facts and figures.
The hearing isn’t only about shaping milk pricing; it’s also showing what needs improving in our industry, and it’s an opportunity to demonstrate what keeps dairy strong. And nothing is on display more emphatically than the power of dairy farmers and the cooperatives they own, and the importance of the cooperative structure to future progress in dairy, at all levels of production, processing and marketing.
Our breadth of membership and depth of milk marketing expertise has risen to every occasion during this hearing, relentlessly advancing the consensus proposal we adopted after two years of exhaustive study and discussion.
That plan, the only comprehensive solution that adequately makes the adjustments the FMMO system needs, would not have come about in the first place were we not able to rely on our farmer-cooperative members and staff to lead the industry. And without the unified voice a farmer cooperative provides its members in policy discussions, we never would have been able to achieve the unanimity in our membership that was necessary for USDA to take up our plan at all.
That final point is important. Cooperative membership holds multiple benefits for member-owners, beginning with having a guaranteed market for milk each day, but adding up to much more. Cooperatives provide technical expertise and risk-management assistance. Cooperatives pool supplies and capital, finance exports, enhance farmers’ bargaining position with proprietary processors, and even enable those farmers to become processors themselves.
These benefits have allowed dairy farmers to build multimillion-dollar processing plants in local communities, access needed financial resources, and capitalize on efficiencies in areas like milk hauling. Membership in a cooperative is the best way, and sometimes the only way, for a dairy farmer to get products to market and earn a decent return from doing so. Simply put, cooperatives make farmers stronger.
But for cooperatives to remain strong, they also need their members to actively engage.
That’s why it’s important to always remain vigilant against any effort to weaken cooperatives by limiting their ability to speak with a unified voice or adequately represent the best interests of their members. From time to time we hear of efforts on Capitol Hill or elsewhere to dilute the power of cooperatives to speak with one voice on votes on issues such as the Federal Milk Marketing Order system. Offered under the guise of encouraging individual choice, in practice these efforts are more like “divide and conquer” – chipping away at the benefits cooperatives provide by weakening their ability to pursue their members’ best interests.
Such efforts tend to be pursued by the same interests that, in the end, would rather that co-ops go away: companies that would prefer the benefits (to them) of vertical integration; agribusinesses that would rather not bargain with co-ops to get a better price for farmers; individual farmers who don’t feel they “need” co-ops to succeed (even as they buy inputs and sign contracts with them); and political ideologues who just don’t like the idea of farmers helping one another for mutual benefit. We’ve always been able to successfully resist them because, in the end, we use the very power we have to work together and protect our members’ interests.
As we celebrate October as National Co-op Month, with Farm Bill discussions underway and FMMO modernization making its way toward an eventual producer vote, we stand ever ready to defend cooperatives and their principles. Every day, at the federal order hearing in Indiana, we’re proving just how valuable to dairy the cooperative model remains. And every day across America, on farms, in milk trucks and in supermarkets, we remain proud of all we do to facilitate orderly marketing of milk and keep this nation nourished – and will continue to do so, with a strong, united voice, for many years to come.
Jim Mulhern
President & CEO, NMPF
NMPF’s Bjerga on FMMO Hearing and Dairy Leadership
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses where USDA’s hearing on Federal Milk Marketing Orders stands and outlines the road ahead once the process is complete. Bjerga was interviewed on RFD-TV.
NMPF Board of Directors Names Gregg Doud New President and CEO
The National Milk Producers Federation’s Board of Directors today unanimously voted to name Gregg Doud, a globally recognized agricultural leader, as its next president and CEO, succeeding Jim Mulhern, who is retiring at the end of the year.
“Dairy farmers across the nation are pleased to endorse a true champion of agriculture, someone who both understands the hard work we do and the opportunities and challenges we face both here and abroad,” said Randy Mooney, chairman of the NMPF Board. “NMPF has long been blessed with leadership that’s been able to take its advocacy for dairy to a higher level. We strongly believe that Gregg Doud more than amply provides the expertise, the background, and the passion we will need as we navigate a challenging, but promising, new era.”
Doud has served in numerous leadership roles in trade association and government work in his more than 30-year career in agricultural policy and economics, most recently at Aimpoint Research, a global intelligence firm specializing in agriculture and food. From 2018 to 2021 he served as Chief Agricultural Negotiator for the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative, appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate, where he led numerous successful efforts to create a fair, prosperous environment for U.S. agricultural exports, including the U.S.-China “Phase One” agreement and the USMCA negotiations.
Before that role, he served as president of the Commodity Markets Council, a trade association for commodities exchanges and industry counterparts; as senior professional staff on the Senate Agriculture Committee; and as chief economist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, among other roles.
Doud said that as the organization’s next leader, he’s excited to engage on critical issues facing dairy farmers. “From the policy arena to new technologies, there are many great new opportunities for dairy producers at home and internationally,” he said. “It is a tremendous privilege to have the opportunity in these exciting times to lead NMPF, one of Washington’s oldest, most prestigious and well-respected agricultural trade associations.”
Doud was born and raised on a 1,000-acre grain, hog and cattle farm near Mankato, KS. He is a graduate of Kansas State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in animal science and a master’s in agricultural economics. He remains actively engaged in production agriculture through partnership in a cow-calf operation and lives with his wife and two children on their horse farm in Lothian, MD.
Doud will begin official work at NMPF in September as its chief operating officer before assuming the role of president and CEO upon Mulhern’s retirement.
Exports Stoke Dairy Demand as Inflation Bites U.S. Consumption
NMPF’s Bjerga on March Board Meeting
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses the organization’s recently concluded board of directors in Arlington, VA in an interview with RFD-TV. NMPF’s board unanimously approved a proposal to modernize the Federal Milk Marketing Order system to benefit farmers and better reflect today’s dairy industry. NMPF board members also discussed the ongoing fight against plant-based milk imitators, as well as advances in animal care and sustainability.
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.”
