Shipping crisis

The National Milk Producers Federation is hosting its annual meeting in Las Vegas, with a focus on top issues for the dairy industry, including the ongoing shipping crisis. Shawna Morris, NMPF and U.S. Dairy Export Council senior vice president for trade policy, says the crisis affects more than just products received in the United States, but exports of U.S. ag and dairy products as well.

“As much as all of us who buy so much that's produced in Asia are necessarily focused on how do we buy on our store shelves the imported products, there's a flip side of this issue as well. It's how do we get our American made products to the foreign consumers that need them, food that feeds people across Asia, whether that's cheese or milk powder or other products, and likewise need an outlet as well.”

 

Morris calls the shipping crisis an additional burden impacting all corners of the dairy industry.

“Our exporters have been dealing with a tremendous additional burden of trying to actually navigate the costs and time involved in getting product out the door. And of course, a lot of those are cooperatives that are farmer owned, so impacts flowing down to the farmer level. This has gone on for so long, that it is quite clear that the market is not sorting itself out. The fact that the market is not improving, that things are not sorting themselves out and that we don't seem to be around the corner of that anytime soon. here really points to the need for more government interjection into this process through the legislative side and through the administration side to help deal with this and begin to sort things out.”

 

U.S. Dairy Export Federation Economists’ estimate that just through the first seven months of the year, the toll on the dairy industry was $7 billion, prompting concern of the long term impact the crisis may have on dairy exports…tape