milk

(NAFB.com) – June is National Dairy Month. It’s hard to have a national dairy month without dairy, and it’s hard to have dairy without dairy farmers. What hasn’t worked out well for milk producers since 2019 is the current Class One mover, the formula that helps set the price of fluid milk under the Federal Milk Marketing Orders. That formula was changed in the 2018 Farm Bill. Under current rules, which were adjusted so that milk processors could better manage pricing risk, dairy producers have lost an estimated $1.2 billion compared to the previous formula. The losses are occurring because farmers now bear a disproportionate part of the burden when prices turn volatile. That wasn’t foreseen when the change to the formula first went into effect. The National Milk Producer’s Federation proposal during the FMMO hearing restores the old formula, as does the farm bill recently passed by the House Agriculture Committee.