| National Milk wants dairy left out of Asia-Pacific trade agreement |
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National Milk Producers’ Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council have called on U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to exclude dairy from any trade agreement between the U.S. and New Zealand or any Asia-Pacific agreement.
National Milk’s Chris Galen reported in Thursday’s DairyLine that the Obama Administration appears to be moving ahead with a trans-Pacific agreement with Australia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Brunei, Vietnam, and New Zealand. The U.S. already has agreements with all of them except New Zealand, Vietnam, and Brunei and, for the most part, Galen says this is fine, but the concern is New Zealand and “its unique dairy industry structure.”
New Zealand is the world’s largest dairy exporter, reasoned Galen, and “benefits tremendously from what is essentially a dairy monopoly where one company (Fonterra) controls more than 90 percent of the country’s milk production and because of the extremely unlevel, uneven playing field that exists there, we think that dairy should be excluded.”
NMPF will take that message to lawmakers as well, according to Galen, and, as this process likely goes forward “we want to make sure dairy farmers are not adversely affected by this potential trade agreement.”
The U.S. has a trade agreement with Australia and Galen reminded us that they had to negotiate “tooth and nail to try and get the best deal possible for U.S. dairy farmers.” New Zealand is an even bigger dairy exporter than Australia, he said, “So this is going to be a real challenging situation for us. The U.S. is not against balanced trade,” he concluded, “But when it comes to this potential dairy situation with New Zealand, it would be so unbalanced, in favor of that country, that we really want to make certain that the U.S. is not adversely affected by this.”
The Beef Checkoff-funded Beef Quality Assurance program benefits dairy producers as well, according to Michigan dairy producer and Beef Board member Ken Nobis. Speaking in Wednesday’s DairyLine, Nobis said “Our primary concern is quality milk but dairy producers have significant sales of beef and we want to see those sales continue to be strong and anything to increase consumption helps that part of our dairy operation.”
Quality assurance already habit for dairy
Dairy farmers are in tune with quality assurance because of the milk issue, Nobis said, and “We just transfer that type of activity to the Beef Quality Assurance.
He said he educates himself and his employees on injection sites and treatment of the animals, “It all runs together and we think it’s all very helpful to increase the profitability of our dairy farm.”
The beef checkoff is “another piece of the puzzle that helps the dairy farmer,” according to Nobis.
Nobis is questioned from time to time by consumers.
Animal care has come to the forefront the last year and a half, ever since the downer cow issue in California and his coop is asked if its members have protocols established to treat animals.
Michigan had a threat in the form of a ballot initiative driven by the Humane Society and he was involved in dealing with that issue in the first part of 2009 to help formulate state legislation to preempt the ballot initiative. That broke down, he admitted, but the issue was primarily aimed at the egg and pork industry.
The issues have been raised in dairy as well, he concluded, and “We get questions now from the people we sell our milk to at the co-op regarding quality assurance and we look forward to establishing an animal care issue with our co-op here in Michigan.”
An old football strategy says, “A good offense makes a good defense” and that could be the rationale behind the “Telling Your Story” program of Dairy Management Incorporated.
The checkoff funded program provides dairy farmers training to address the questions and challenges they face from consumers.
We spoke with a dairy producer who took that training in Monday’s “DMI Update.” California dairyman and DMI board member, Brad Scott, said the program made him and other producers more aware of the urgency and the need to communicate the positive things that dairy farmers do to their urban neighbors.
Dairy farmers invited to tell story
Animal welfare and environmental concerns give farmers a chance to tell how they are good stewards of the land and their animals with the end result being a good, nutritious food product for consumers.
One of the messages that the program communicates is that, if dairy farmers don’t tell their story, someone else will. Scott agrees and said people need to see that “there is a face behind the dairy and that is the family dairy farmer.”
Scott admits that he does get challenged from time to time, but attributes that to people being misinformed. The “Telling Your Story” training is a great opportunity for farmers to tell the facts, he said, and the public feels more comfortable talking face to face to a farmer.
Scott highly recommends his fellow producers take the training. “It’s very easy,” he concluded. “Just like talking to your friends at school or people at church, or your neighbors, all you’re doing is communicating to them what you do on a daily basis and that’s very helpful.” |
| 1/6/2010 |
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