After six months of evidence and cross-examination, the public hearing for the Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) ended on January 30. It will be a while before the FMMO is updated, since the hearing addressed 21 suggestions filed by business organizations. Online access to the hearing record is required so that groups and people may study it and provide feedback on how to improve it. After the hearing, interested parties may submit briefs in response to the USDA’s recommendation. The agency will next hold a comment and exception period. The changes will be put into action after they are approved.
To protect dairy farmers from additional losses during the remaining FMMO rulemaking process, the American Farm Bureau Federation filed an emergency petition with USDA Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack at the end of the hearing, asking for a final decision to speed up the implementation of the “higher of” Class I mover formula. Since the new formula was put into place after the 2018 Farm Bill, farmers have lost $1.2 billion, and they are poised to lose much more money in the next months. In their recommendation that was sent to USDA before the hearing, NMPF prioritized making changes to the Class I mover.
Farmers and groups representing the dairy sector will now have to wait for the USDA to respond to their request. Unfortunately, dairy farmers’ payments have been cut with no signs of relief in sight due to the current Class I tariff, which was an unintentional legislative error.
