The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service didn’t take long to tally the farmer votes on the federal milk marketing order proposal.
The process of opening the federal milk marketing orders took about two years, but ended quickly Thursday.
Dana Coale with USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service tells Brownfield, “All of the federal milk marketing orders were approved by producers.” She says ballots were due Wednesday and her agency wanted to get the results out quickly so farmers and processors could plan accordingly. “Having the uncertainty of whether or not orders were approved and if changes were going to be implemented, and more importantly, when those changes might be implemented was really important to USDA to make sure we could get that information out there.”
Coale says there are still issues that each individual marketing order may wish to change for the benefit of their region such as milk pooling provisions. She says the regional hearing process would be similar but would likely take much less time.
The eleven regional marketing orders include:
- Updating the skim milk composition factors to 3.3 percent true protein, 6 percent other solids and 9.3 percent nonfat solids.
- Removing 500-pound barrel cheddar cheese prices from the Dairy Product Mandatory Reporting Program survey.
- Updating the Class III and Class IV manufacturing allowances to $0.2519 for cheese, $0.2272 for butter, $0.2393 for nonfat dry milk and $0.2668 for dry whey, all on a per pound basis, and the butterfat recovery factor to 91 percent.
- Returning the base Class I skim milk price formula to the higher-of the advanced Class III or Class IV skim milk prices for the month. In addition, adoption of a Class I extended shelf life (ESL) adjustment for all ESL products equal to the average-of mover plus a 24-month rolling average adjuster with a 12-month lag.
- Updating the Class I differential values to reflect the increased cost of servicing the Class I market.
Source: Brownfield Ag News / Larry Lee
