The dairy industry spent weeks this summer at hearings for modernizing the Federal Milk Marketing Order.
Minnesota dairy leaders say they are happy with how those meetings turned out.
“But we’re very glad to see, which we testified on, the extended shelf life milk having a way to manage their risk for the first time or continue, I should say. We hope that USDA looks at updating butter fat alongside protein because we think it’d be really weird to have a three-four fat and three-four protein someday, but we’re heading in that direction right now. We’re hoping that they update both the fat and protein alongside each other so that the CME and others work well for farmers to understand. So, overall, I think we’ve got a decent recommendation. We would have done some things differently, but hopefully, when we see the final recommendation, we can educate farmers as to how it affects them and affects members of our cooperative,” said Lucas Sjostrom.
Dairy groups like the National Milk Producers Federation have applauded the proposals, saying they align with their own ideas. Economists there say it is important to have a national system that levels the playing field across the country.
