The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released their Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) final decision on Nov. 12, which will be voted on by dairy producers in a referendum before the end of the year. Ballots must be postmarked by Dec. 31.
The final decision contains amendments to five categories of milk pricing, including milk composition factors, surveyed commodity products, Class III and Class IV formula factors, base Class I skim milk price, and Class I and Class II differentials with the intention of updating formulas and factors in response to industry changes over time.
Dana Coale, deputy administrator of the AMS Dairy Program, said the USDA received 128 comments, including 68 from dairy producers, following the recommended decision released in July. Based on those comments, the USDA made minor adjustments to their recommended decision, including changes to some Class I differentials, changes to make allowances and a change to the implementation period for milk composition factors (Table 1). These changes are reflected in the final decision.
Once the final decision is officially published in the Federal Register, the referendum process will begin. At that point, the USDA – via the market administrator for each of the 11 FMMOs – will mail ballots to dairy producers and cooperatives.
“There are two ways to vote,” Coale says. “Cooperatives can elect to vote on behalf of their membership – called block voting – or producers will receive a ballot that they fill out and mail back to the USDA. If the cooperative is block voting, they will submit their ballot along with a resolution stating that their board has elected to vote on behalf of the entire membership.”
Coale encourages producers to talk with their cooperative to learn if they plan to block vote on behalf of producer members or if producers will receive individual ballots.
“The producers and cooperatives eligible to vote are those producers who were pooled during the month of January 2024,” Coale says. “If a producer was pooled on more than one order, then that producer will have an opportunity to vote on both orders. A cooperative that is block voting will only vote on behalf of the number of producers tpooled on each order for that month. For example, if a cooperative has 500 members and only 300 were pooled on one order and 200 were pooled on another order, then those are the numbers that count in the referendum – not their total membership."
Coale anticipates that ballots should arrive toward the end of November. The voting process will conclude on Dec. 31, and all ballots must be postmarked by this date. Once ballots are received, the USDA will tabulate results.
Approval is determined by either two-thirds of the dairy producers eligible to vote within each FMMO or dairy producers representing two-thirds of the milk volume participating in the referendum voting to approve the order as amended. If the order is not approved as amended, it will be terminated.
“The order is very interconnected, and when you change one aspect of the order, you have to make adjustments to other aspects of the order and it needs to function as one unit. That’s why producers are voting on the entire order as amended,” Coale says.
Once votes are tabulated, the USDA will issue a final rule, which will indicate if an individual order is approved. If approved, the final rule will also include the implementation dates for the amendments.
The USDA is hosting webinars on Nov. 19 at 11 a.m. EST, Nov. 21 at 3 p.m. EST, Nov. 25 at 11 a.m. EST to share information and answer questions about the final decision. The webinars will be recorded and will be available on the FMMO hearing website. Questions for the USDA can be submitted via email.
“We at the USDA really appreciate all the participation and the seriousness that everyone took when preparing the information and evidence they submitted into the hearing record. We can only issue a decision that is as good as the evidence we received. We can’t rely on anything other than what is included in that hearing record. Special thanks to all the producers who took the time to participate in this process,” Coale says.
