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AADC, AFBF continue call for mandatory dairy cost of production surveys

Farmers and farm organizations continue to express concerns about USDA’s proposed changes to the Federal Milk Marketing Order system. 

American Farm Bureau Federation economist Danny Munch told a group of farmers, economists, and industry experts Farm Bureau still wants to see mandatory cost of production surveys to justify any increase in the make allowances, the dollars deducted from milk checks to help cover processing costs.  USDA used survey data from dairy economist Mark Stephenson, which Munch says doesn’t provide enough data. “The cheese survey, 43 million pounds, but within the survey, the studies, it was between six and seven million pounds. Butter was about the same size if not a little bit higher in the first study that he did. Whey and nonfat dry milk, again, far less volume was captured within the study samples.”

Munch says the limited information provided by the processors makes it hard to justify any make allowance increase. “You had 76% of cheddar cheese plants, 80% of butter plants, 40% of nonfat dry milk plants, and 715 of dry whey plants did not participate in his original study. That’s a substantial amount of processing plants not to be included.”

American Farm Bureau Federation and the American Dairy Coalition are hoping language can be inserted into the new farm bill that would call for mandatory cost of production surveys.

Munch was a presenter Thursday at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin.

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