American Farm Bureau Federation Monitors Federal Dairy Policy

The Federal Milk Marketing order hearings, which took place from August to January, involved hundreds of hours of testimony. The American Farm Bureau Federation was present throughout chief economist Roger Cryan on AFBF comments on the milk marketing order.

"We testified at least a half a dozen times. We participated in cross-examination. We submitted extensive briefs, along with everybody else and USDA, put out the draft decision on July 1. It was in the Federal Register on July 15. There are some good things. A few good things increases the value turn to farmers of bottling milk. It increases the location values, and there's some formula adjustments that kind of assume the higher components that are typical of milk now over what they were 20 or 30 years ago, and it will restore the higher of the cheese or butter powder value for the Class One formula, which is probably which was our number one priority farmers, and we explored it with farmers. We had a farm in Kansas City a couple years ago. The number one concern of farmers was to get that higher of back

at the beginning of July, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service released our recommended changes to the federal milk marketing order."

Public comment is now open through September 30 via the Federal Register, which is@regulations.gov.