Farm Bureau Releases Milk Program Recommendations

Oct 04, 2019

The American Farm Bureau Federation today released a proposal for the future of U.S. milk-pricing provisions and marketing-order reform. The recommendations aim to bring more democracy and a more equitable program for all dairy farmers. Although federal milk marketing orders have been a pillar of the dairy industry for more than 80 years, the program has not undergone substantial change in nearly two decades. A working group consisting of Farm Bureau grassroots leaders and other contributors from the Farm Bureau family prepared the report after broad consultation with industry and academia.

The Farm Bureau Federal Milk Marketing Order Working Group recommendations are contained in the report “Priorities, Principles and Policy Considerations for FMMO Reform.”

Key recommendations would:

Give every dairy farmer a voice by eliminating the ability of coops to vote on behalf of member-producers on changes to federal milk marketing orders (bloc voting);
Improve risk sharing across the supply chain in the product pricing formulas by adjusting the “make allowance” (a fixed deduction or credit for processing milk into finished dairy products) to be variable on a commodity-by-commodity basis;
Collect more robust pricing information by significantly expanding the Agriculture Department’s mandatory price reporting survey; and
Simplify milk pricing rules in the Southeast by aligning the qualifying criteria for pooling and eliminating transportation subsidies.

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