Digest Highlights: • Northern Plains, dairy states driving increased alfalfa acreage • Multiple component pricing proposal request withdrawn • U.S. dairy exports face pivotal dates • House, Senate farm bills headed to conference committee • Cows still dry in the Southwest • DFA Garden City plant cited for innovation

May 2018’s Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy) margin calculations continued a four-month string below $7 per hundredweight (cwt), meaning dairy producers who purchased coverage at the highest margin levels will receive indemnity payments for a fourth consecutive month.

Tomorrow’s dairy leaders need training and practice in soft skills and leadership, to network and develop perspective about the dairy industry.

More than 60 companies and organizations representing American dairy farmers and cheesemakers commended President Donald Trump today for his efforts on equitable trade and for insisting that Canada halt its market-distorting dairy practices. At the same time, the companies urged the administration to reconsider its imposition of new tariffs on Mexico in light of that country’s constructive engagement in North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations and the harm that Mexico’s retaliatory tariffs will have on U.S. dairy’s trade with its largest and most reliable market.

Digest Highlights • Milk marketings through California and Federal Milk Marketing Orders highly concentrated • July Class I base gets a small nudge • Spring flush slows cow slaughter pace • Dairy Business Innovation Act proposed • GAIN report: China dairy

The House version of the 2018 Farm Bill (the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018) was narrowly approved by the full House, 213-211, largely along party lines, on June 21. Dairy provisions were untouched from an earlier version of the farm bill voted down in the House in April.

Education is the key to healthy and vibrant dairy communities. The dairy community is controlling its own destiny and addressing its ongoing needs through the Professional Dairy Producers Foundation (PDPF) competitive grant program. PDPF funds educational programs and initiatives that are consistent with its strategic vision of a professional, proactive and prepared dairy community.

The Klussendorf Memorial Association is pleased to announce the Wolfe family of Ovaltop Holsteins in Richfield Springs, New York, has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 Robert “Whitey” McKown Master Breeder Award.

A three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling that Arla Foods can no longer continue its advertising campaign implying its cheeses are safer than their competitors’ because its milk is sourced from cows not supplemented with recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), according to Courthouse News Service.

Editor's note: Market commentary from Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and Bob Cropp, dairy economics professor emeritus, has been added. May 2018 U.S. milk production posted another small year-over-year increase, but cow numbers reversed course, moving higher again, according to the USDA’s monthly Milk Production report, released June 19. At 19.1 billion pounds, May U.S. milk production was up just 0.8 percent from a year earlier. USDA also revised April 2018 production downward slightly. The April revision represented a decrease of 18 million pounds, or 0.1 percent from last month's preliminary production estimate.