The National Milk Producers Federation this week approved a suite of farm bill policy priorities covering the commodities, conservation, trade, and nutrition titles. In the Commodities title, NMPF seeks to build on its successes in the last farm bill to strengthen the dairy safety net and provide producers with access to a range of risk management tools. NMPF’s board voted to support continuing the Dairy Margin Coverage safety net while updating the program’s production history calculation. NMPF seeks farm bill language to direct USDA to conduct mandatory plant cost studies every two years to provide better data to inform future make allowance reviews. This would complement the near-term make allowance update NMPF is pursuing through its Federal Milk Marketing Order initiative via the USDA hearing process announced last week. Similarly, the board also pursues restoring the previous “higher of” Class I mover in the most expeditious manner possible, either administratively via the FMMO process or legislatively through the farm bill, in which the mover was last changed in 2018.
