Record milk prices seen in 2022 likely won’t repeat themselves, as production increases and consumers grapple with an economic slowdown, according to members of the NMPF and U.S. Dairy Export Council’s joint economics unit, in a Dairy Defined Podcast released today. But exports are on track to increase, and demand will likely be resilient as dairy remains must-have for buyers.

“Consumers around the world still gravitate towards dairy, even when they're experiencing tighter economic situations,” said Will Loux, head of the team Vice President for Global Economic Affairs with NMPF and USDEC. “They ultimately view dairy as an essential item and will continue to consume it.”

Loux discusses the global and domestic dairy outlook with NMPF’s Chief Economist, Peter Vitaliano; Economic Research and Analysis Director, Stephen Cain; and the joint economic team's newest member, Economic Policy and Global Analysis Coordinator, Allison Wilton. 

Holiday giving season is under way, and NMPF's National Dairy Leadership Scholarship Program is a worthy beneficiary for anyone who cares about a better industry future, explains Nicole Ayache, who leads the program at NMPF, in the latest Dairy Defined podcast. The scholarship supports graduate students, enrolled in master's or doctoral programs, who are actively pursuing dairy related fields of research that directly benefit milk marketing cooperatives and the U.S. dairy industry at large. To learn more about it or to donate, just go to NMPF’s home page, nmpf.org, and click on the blue bar. 

“As we look at the last 10 years or so of recipients, all of those recipients have stayed within agriculture,”  said Ayache, who also serves as NMPF’s vice president for environmental stewardship and sustainability and leads the FARM Program's Environmental Stewardship initiative. “In research, academia, allied industry, whatever it might be, those individuals have stayed within agriculture, and the majority within dairy itself. So we do believe that the scholarships we are awarding are really fulfilling our goal, which is to support the future of dairy.”

The International Dairy Federation (IDF) World Dairy Summit brings unique opportunities for U.S. dairy as the host nation for the Chicago event, to be held next Oct. 16-19. The global conference returns to the United States for the first time in three decades, at a moment when rising exports and world-leading sustainability gives the U.S. industry a great story to tell, according to three leaders in organizing next year’s events.

“It's a really exciting time for our industry, and we think that there's a tremendous opportunity, a tremendous amount of potential that dairy, globally, has here,” said Shawna Morris, Senior Vice President for Trade at the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). “Looking at how we tap into that together is what we're focused on doing through the conference.”

“Bringing all of these folks to the United States creates an opportunity to get folks into facilities, to get them out to farms, to really show the rest of the global dairy industry what the U.S. dairy industry is all about,” said Nick Gardner, chairman of the U.S. International Dairy Federation, the Senior Vice President for Sustainability and Multilateral Affairs at USDEC, and with Morris the co-chair of next year’s summit.

“This is an excellent opportunity for the U.S. dairy industry to highlight its world leading dairy production from the farm through our cooperatives and processors and out to the consumers,” said Jamie Jonker, NMPF’s chief science officer and chair of IDF’s Science Program Coordinating Committee. “It's a way for us to step on the world stage, reintroduce U.S. dairy, its innovation and technology to the global marketplace, and demonstrate how we are world leaders.”

Morris, Gardner and Jonker also discuss how the dairy community can get involved with supporting the event, already highlighted by platinum-level sponsor Dairy Management Inc., as planning for it is already in full swing. 

Control of the House of Representatives remains in doubt nearly one week after last Tuesday’s elections. But regardless of who is in charge in 2023, dairy’s priorities will move forward, says Paul Bleiberg, NMPF’s Senior Vice President for Government Relations, in a Dairy Defined podcast. 

“The basic policy priorities remain the same,” said Bleiberg. “There are some areas where we might have more support from Republicans, some where we might have more support from Democrats, some where we might have more support on regional lines, and it's really a question of strategy. Who's going to be on the Agriculture Committee? Who's going to be on the Appropriations Committee or the Ways and Means committee? Who are the members that we might go to kind of champion different priorities in those or other committees? That sort of is subject to those dynamics, but our priorities will be our priorities.”

NMPF Chairman Randy Mooney, a dairy farmer outside Rogersville, MO, said the spirit of collaboration and facing challenges head on, embodied in the cooperative model, will give dairy strength in the years to come. He spoke on Oct. 25 at NMPF’s annual meeting in Denver. 

“This is an exciting time in our industry,” Mooney said. “What we do on our farms and in our communities is important, how we do it is important, and it's important that we stay at the forefront of this revolution, never settling for status quo, thinking differently, and seizing the opportunities.”

To celebrate National Cooperative Month (and the centennial of the Capper-Volstead Act that underpins farm cooperatives to this day), Cooperative Hall of Fame Member Rich Stammer, former CEO of Agri-Mark, says the values of cooperatives remain important as new challenges to dairy farmers emerge. 

“As more and more people moved away from the farm, didn't know anything about farming, co-ops have played a bigger role in informing consumers about dairy and farmers and what they do,” he said. “We have attacks from animal rights groups. Dairy farmers take great care of their animals, but getting that message out to consumers with all the negative things that come down, is an important role of co-ops. We have a program, our FARM program, basically to ensure animals are treated right, to have a measurable way of animal care, and to get that message out to consumers about how well we care for our animals.
 
 “You have more and more challenges on the environmental side of our business. And dairy co-ops have become very involved in sustainability efforts, and again, showing how sustainable dairy farms are and how we take care of our land. We are much more involved in getting messages out to consumers, representing farmers and environmental laws, and there's so many areas,” he said. 

Water is front-of-mind for California dairy farmers, as scarcity is threatening to change the industry structure of the top U.S. dairy-producing state. While successful adjustments to a lower-water future are possible, the state badly needs moisture in the next few months to stave off greater immediate hardship for milk producers and improved government policy to help dairy prosper in the longer term, said Geoff Vanden Heuvel, director of regulatory and economic affairs for the California-based Milk Producers Council. 

“I put 2,500 to 3,000 miles a month of my truck just driving up and down the Valley going to water meetings, and to see what's been built here is just incredible and marvelous,” said Vanden Heuvel in a Dairy Defined podcast. “We're running the risk of losing that if we don't do some things intelligently.”

While “lab-based” dairy is touted by startups and investors, the very concept that dairy-protein replicas made in vats holds equal value for consumers is suspect, says Dr. John Lucey, professor of food science at the University of Wisconsin, in a Dairy Defined podcast released today.

“We have to separate out the fact there's a lot of marketing hype,” Lucey said. “The reality is, to produce these original structures like milk fat or casein, micelles and stuff that are present naturally in milk, is really complicated.”

Lucey details the many differences between dairy, a natural animal product, and “animal-free” imitators in composition and sustainability, noting why labeling for such products need to be clearly differentiated. 

The Ocean Shipping Reform Act is now law, but much more is needed to ensure reliable exports of U.S. dairy products to the overseas markets that represent the industry’s future, said Tony Rice, trade policy manager for NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council, in a Dairy Defined podcast released today. 

“Our international customers demand U.S. dairy products,” said Rice. “Our competitors, mostly the EU and New Zealand, they've shown that they're not going to be able to keep pace in the coming years. So it makes all the more important that these supply chain issues get ironed out, and hopefully sooner rather than later.”

Rice explains the complexities of the challenges facing U.S. port traffic, why additional public policy changes are essential, and how NMPF is leading agriculture’s efforts for change. 

With initial hearings under way, dairy’s priorities in the 2023 Farm Bill are taking shape, NMPF Senior Vice President for Government Relations Paul Bleiberg said in an NMPF podcast.

“A lot of that stakeholder outreach is going on right now, both publicly in hearings and behind the scenes as well, as we all start to figure out what improvements do we need to see in the next Farm Bill,” Bleiberg said. “It's an important opportunity given that it only does come up every so often.”

Bleiberg also discussed upcoming congressional elections and how redistricting could affect dairy’s political clout in the next Congress.