By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, October 6, 2023

CARMEL, Ind. – USDA’s federal milk pricing hearing continued into its 7th week on Wednesday, Oct. 4, and USDA announced another virtual farmer testimony session for Friday for Oct. 6, with the signup notice and link posted at the hearing website with just three days notice on Oct. 3.

Farmer testimony was heard virtually also on Friday, Sept. 29, including from two Pennsylvania producers and a third from the Keystone State testified in person on Tues., Oct. 3. More on their testimonies in a future edition.

Here are some observations as I’ve listened on and off over the past several weeks as the testimony and cross-examinations dug into this issue of the Class I mover formula.

As one can imagine, daily testimony from 8 to 5 with exhibits and cross-examination add up to a lot of material for USDA to parse through.

This is particularly daunting with the introduction of significant testimony about the CME futures, hedging, risk management and other such business management by farms and processors and how FMMO changes affect these practices.

Last week, Pittsburgh milk bottler Chuck Turner of Turner Dairy Farms testified in support of the Milk Innovation Group’s concept of modifying the current ‘average of’ method for calculating Class I to create a floor under which the add-on adjuster cannot fall below.

The fairlife CEO also testified about the MIG proposal for the Class I mover last week, explaining that fairlife relies on hedging so the company can offer 9 to 12 month pricing of extended shelf life fluid milk products to foodservice, institutional food buyers and convenience stores that purchase plant-based alternatives and other beverages with annual contracts.

He explained that if the Class I price goes back to the ‘higher of’, companies like fairlife and Nestle (also testified), and others will not be able to hedge that annual price without introducing increasingly volatile price risk to their businesses.

The Nestle rep noted that Nesquick sales increased since late 2019. That’s when they started offering buyers longer-term pricing because the Class I mover was changed to the averaging formula in 2019.

For his part, even Turner said hedging on the CME butter, powder and cheese markets might work to build a protected price for selling fresh fluid milk to schools and other buyers that want longer term pricing.

He was asked several questions about the role of the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board in his payment of farmers and competition in the state and region.

Here’s the problem: Grocery stores still largely receive fresh milk a few times a week direct-ship to stores.

On the other hand, the extended shelf life milk, aseptically packaged (shelf stable) milk, and various milk based innovations are shipped to a warehouse. They are not treated the same as fresh fluid milk from a pricing and supply standpoint.

Additionally, the foodservice, institutional, convenience stores, and schools want to know a price for 6 months, 9 months, one year. Bottlers say they can’t offer that if they can’t protect their risk.

So, to minimize risk for processors, the ‘average of’ formula for the Class I mover was put into legislative language in the 2018 Farm Bill with the acknowledgment that it could be changed in two years by a USDA hearing process like the one in Indiana the past six weeks.

That change ended up introducing significant risk to dairy farmers, who found their ability to hedge THEIR risk was jeopardized.

Just as there are two classes of Class I processors — fresh milk and ESL fluid products, there are two classes of dairy farmers. On the one hand, producers whose milk routinely goes to Class I fluid milk plants or pool distributing manufacturing plants cannot be depooled, but milk routinely going to manufactured dairy products can be depooled.

When manufacturing class prices are higher than the Class I mover, a ripple effect occurs that disrupts the class pricing alignments. When higher priced milk is depooled, the processors can keep that money, or pass it on to their own shippers — disrupting one of the functions of the FMMOs to have orderly marketing and uniform pricing.

As one market analyst noted in her testimony last week, it’s like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. These alternate Class I mover proposals are complicated with rolling adjusters to be added to the averaging formula.

For the function of the FMMOs, the ‘just-right’ porridge is the ‘higher of’ for the Class I mover, many have testified.

Trouble is, some regions may see more processors leave the FMMOs if they can’t make it work for them, and the bifurcation in the Class I fluid milk market will leave some processors unable to adapt to long-term pricing for large institutional buyers.

Which way is fluid milk consumption heading? That may be the question to answer first.

In the Eastern U.S., one thing’s for sure, the current flat milk production is being soaked up by strong bottling demand, and the market is paying above class prices right now to get milk for other uses.

The Class I pricing question, along with the other proposals in the lengthy USDA hearing, are being looked at by USDA through the lens of the FMMO’s purpose, especially “orderly marketing.”

However, USDA has no concrete definition for orderly marketing. Will we see that intuitive definition change? What do farmers have to say about it?

For its part American Farm Bureau Federation has been orderly in its presentation of testimony. Economists Roger Cryan and Danny Munch have testified. Farm Bureau members have testified.

This week, Cryan testified on removing the “advance pricing” from the Class I and II formula as this function of using two weeks of product prices to determine four weeks of pricing the following month is another piece of the puzzle bringing more volatility into the equation that can lead to depooling.

However, processors say they want advance pricing, and they want long-term hedging too! They want it all!

According to AFBF data presented at the hearing, advanced pricing has disrupted the orderly marketing of milk and led to unfair marketing conditions for dairy farmers. This disruption is caused when the price of other classes of milk rises above the announced advanced price of Class I and Class II milk. A full explanation of advanced pricing is available via AFBF’s Market Intel.

AFBF supports several proposals by the National Milk Producers Federation, which would increase Class I prices, drop barrel cheese from the Class III price formula, and return to the “higher-of” Class I formula. AFBF also supported in testimony its proposals to add salted butter and 640-lb block cheese to the pricing survey.

The hearing website posts updates at https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/moa/dairy/hearings/national-fmmo-pricing-hearing