dairy

In the midst of a national cheese glut, a government-sponsored marketing group called Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) is partnering with fast-food restaurants to encourage Americans to eat more cheese. Last year, farmers poured out 50 million gallons of milk because prices and demand were so low. As dairy consumption has dropped, DMI, which was behind the popular “Got Milk?” campaign, now spends much of its time sending experts into the secret product-creation rooms of chains like Burger King, Domino’s, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and Wendy’s.

Dairy farmers in three counties in California's Central Valley have temporary permission from local officials to bury or compost hundreds of cows that died in a June heat wave, says the Fresno Bee. Ordinarily, the dead animals would be sent to a rendering plant, but there are too many carcasses and a mechanical malfunction reduced the plant's capacity.

With Robert Lighthizer now at work as U.S. trade representative, the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee asked the Trump administration to push for fair trade in ultra-filtered milk sales to Canada.

Mammoth farms can illustrate “critical weaknesses in the unorthodox inspection system that the Agriculture Department uses to ensure that ‘organic’ food really is organic,” says a report by the Washington Post.

The dairy subsidy created in the 2014 farm law, the insurance-like Margin Protection Program, "is not working" but it can be retooled into an effective safety net, the head of the National Milk Producers Federation told the House Agriculture Committee. The changes would provide more assistance to producers during tough times, like the past couple of years, and potentially drive up costs to the government.

An upsurge in demand by China, the top customer for U.S. food and agricultural goods, will boost U.S. farm exports to $136 billion this year, the first upturn in sales since 2014, said the Agriculture Department. The quarterly forecast is $2 billion higher than USDA's estimate in November, "largely due to expected increases in livestock, poultry, and dairy exports."

Critics say the dairy subsidy created by the 2014 farm law, called the Margin Protection Plan and based on the difference between milk prices and feed costs, is inadequate in the face of the steep decline in milk prices since 2014. An alternative approach is being developed, says Dairy Herd Management magazine – a revenue insurance policy.

Two weeks from now, Tom Vilsack, the longest-serving agriculture secretary in half-a-century, will start his new job on the opposite side of the Potomac River from the USDA headquarters. As expected, he will be president and chief executive of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, based in Arlington, Va., which works to expand sales of American dairy products and ingredients.

Sharply higher prices for cheese, butter and sugar pushed up the FAO Food Price Index by 0.7 percent, continuing an unbroken rise from July. The index, which tracks prices for five groups of foods, has been on the rise throughout this year and is now 9 percent higher than one year ago.

Hit hard by the worst drought in more than a decade, Northeast dairy and vegetable farmers are making difficult sacrifices. “Some private wells have dried up. Farmers face millions of dollars in lost crops, and federal agricultural officials have declared much of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut a natural disaster area,” says The New York Times.

Clover Storenetta Farms, based in northern California, "will become the first major dairy in the United States to sell non-GMO conventional milk," says the San Francisco Chronicle. "With its newest product, Clover is betting that there is also a market for conventional milk produced without GMOs that is cheaper than organic milk."

One of the largest dairy milk producers in Southeast Asia, Vietnam Dairy Products, "is in talks to acquire another U.S. company" as it expands its international presence, said Bloomberg. Vinamilk, as the company is known, became sole owner Driftwood Dairy in California earlier this year.

The American Farm Bureau Federation asked the USDA to provide emergency assistance to U.S. dairy farmers, including purchasing millions of pounds of cheese for government nutrition programs, as they cope with milk prices at seven-year lows, Agri-Pulse reported. In the past two years, milk sales have fallen $16 billion, AFBF President Zippy Duvall said in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Nestlé, the world's largest food company, will pay up to $111 million to a French company in a deal to develop and market a milk allergy test for infants, says Reuters. The transaction "complements the company's market-leading infant formula business" and is part of Nestlé's expansion into health services, said the news agency.

While the risk to the general population from the H5N1 avian flu virus remains low, an assessment rated its future pandemic potential as moderate, the same as previous assessments, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The results of this IRAT [Influenza Risk Assessment Tool] validate the pro-active, coordinated U.S. government response," said the CDC in a weekly report on bird flu.