Federal Milk Marketing Order Progress Report

National Milk Producers Federation Senior Vice President of Member Services and Strategic Initiatives, Chris Galen has an update on the federal milk marketing order. Updates a process that began almost two years ago that USDA is now nearing the end of

the decision that they came out with.

“Here is basically a reflection of many of the recommendations that National Milk made. We didn't get everything that we had asked USDA to do. We didn't expect we bat the 1000, but some of the key issues, we are very happy with the results. Now we haven't really kicked tires on a lot of the details on this, but at first glance, it looks like that many of the things that we asked USDA to consider changing are being changed in ways that we agree with.”

The next steps now include a review of the recommended decision that will be examined by organizations like the National Milk Producers Federation.

“So what USDA put out here at the beginning of July is a recommended decision. What happens now is that our organization, along with others interested us, can decide what they agree with, what they don't like, and then there's an opportunity to provide comments to help correct or to at least criticize some of the direction that USDA made. And then ultimately, USDA will have to decide, yeah, you guys have a point or no, we're going to stick with our recommended decision in July.”

Chris Galen with the National Milk Producers Federation.