FMMO’s Next Steps Begin

Feb 13, 2024

Its Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) hearing now concluded, USDA is now considering more than 12,000 pages of testimony as it formulates its plan for FMMO modernization. NMPF is still doing what it can to ensure that proposal best reflects the interest of dairy farmers and their cooperatives, two NMPF economists said in a Dairy Defined podcast.

The key to successful modernization is a comprehensive approach that addresses the complexity of federal orders in a way that respects the entire dairy industry while keeping in mind that orders most fundamentally must work for farmers, Dr. Peter Vitaliano, Vice President for Economic Policy and Market Research, and Stephen Cain, Senior Director for Economic Research and Analysis at NMPF. That’s always been the bedrock principle behind NMPF proposals on areas ranging from returning to the “higher-of” Class I mover to updating milk composition factors.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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