Tag Archives: Dairy imports

Deep discounts on All-Milk prices bring new risk management challenges

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NOTE: In the first part of this three-part series, we’ll look at some of the factors contributing to the huge divergence between Class III and IV at the root of current losses in milk income, especially for risk-managers who were caught off guard with no good tools to manage the misalignment and especially the de-pooling. In the next two parts, we’ll look at some of the advice for managing basis risk in CME-based tools and revenue insurance.

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This graph at dairymarkets.org shows the divergence between Class III and IV milk futures at the root of deep discounts in All-Milk prices as compared with Class III.

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Friday, August 7, 2020

BROWNSTOWN, Pa. — Dairy producers find themselves in uncharted territory, where a mixed bag of market factors, pricing structures, class price misalignments, Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) provisions, product-in / product-out flows via imports and exports vs. inventory, as well as the government’s thumbprint on the scales in a pandemic shutdown of the economy and the dairy product purchases that followed. All have affected Class III and Class IV milk prices quite differently, creating deep discounts in blended farm milk prices vs. Class III.

“We’re seeing milk class wars,” said economist Dan Basse of AgResource Company, a domestic and international agricultural research firm located in Chicago, during a PDPW Dairy Signal webinar recently. Basse opined that the current four-class FMMO system is old and outdated with pitfalls creating new volatility issues for producers in the form of the $7 to $10 spread between Class III and Class IV in June / July.

He noted, as have others in the past, that a simpler pricing system with one manufacturing milk price and one fluid milk price is something that “dairy farmers could live within.”

Under the current four-class system, and the new way of calculating the Class I Mover via averaging, dairy farmers now find themselves “living on the edge, not knowing what the PPD (Producer Price Differential) will be,” said Basse.

“A $7.00 per hundredweight discount is a lot of capital, a lot of income and a lot of margin to lose with no way to hedge for it, no way to protect it, when the losses are not being made up at home (as reflected in) the PPD,” Basse related.

Previous Farmshine articles over the past few weeks have explained some of the FMMO factors reflected in the negative PPDs everyone is focused on because they are so large. While June’s PPD was primarily affected by lag-time, the next several months of negative PPDs are likely to occur based on the legislated change to the Class I Mover calculation in the last Farm Bill.

The significance of the PPD is that it indicates to the producer the value of the milk in FMMO-available pool dollars as compared to the announced Class III price. The PPD is how the FMMO pool revenue is balanced.

Normally, component values are paid by class, and the extra is divided by hundredweights in the pool to calculate a PPD reflected as the difference (usually positive) between the FMMO uniform price and the Class III price, according to Dr. Mark Stephenson, University of Wisconsin dairy economist in a recent PDPW Dairy Signal.

When higher-value Class III milk is de-pooled in this scenario, the dollars don’t stretch, so the pool has to be balanced by dividing the loss (negative PPD). Even in the southern FMMOs based on fat/skim the same shortfall occurs and shows up as milk being worth less than Class III, instead of more.

The problem faced right now is the Class III price does not represent the broader industry, and there are no straightforward tools for managing this type of risk, especially when the higher-value Class III milk is de-pooled or replaced with a lower class.

“It’s a terrible situation on the hedging side, with three material sources of the problem,” notes Bill Curley of Blimling and Associates in a Farmshine interview this week.

While he describes ways to manage some of these sources in building a risk management price or margin, such as using a mix of Class III and IV and other strategies that reflect a producer’s milk market blend of classes, “there’s no hedge for de-pooling,” he relates.

In fact, Stephenson illustrates this for the Upper Midwest FMMO 30, showing a difference of $7 between the level of negative PPD for July without de-pooling and the level of negative PPD with de-pooling.

While July de-pooling figures won’t be known until mid-August, the June de-pooling in the Northeast wasn’t as bad as in California, as an example. In California, so much milk is already sold outside the pool, that it is easy to replace virtually all of the Class III milk with lower-value Class IV in this divergent classified price scenario.

In the Upper Midwest, only so much de-pooling can occur due to qualifying criteria, so utilization that may normally be 75% Class III, was 50% in June. They don’t have enough Class IV to simply replace Class III and stay qualified on the Order.

Curley and others explain that this situation could leave producers unprotected, especially since they can’t control any of the sources of misalignment between their All-Milk price and Class III. The only factor they can control is whether or not to drop the hedges, which then leaves them unprotected for market risk at a volatile time in the midst of a pandemic as virus rates are reportedly re-surging.

Meanwhile, this week began with risk working its way back into markets as three consecutive days of steep losses in CME cheese and butter prices pushed both Class III and IV milk futures lower, but still with a $4 to $7 gap between them in the next few months.

For its part in balancing broader industry demand, USDA announced a third round of food box purchases for September and October, which will again include cheese, but this time will include more from Class II (sour cream, yogurt, cream cheese) as well as some butter from Class IV. All told, the government will have spent about $1 billion in three phases of dairy purchases for the Farmers to Families Food Box program.

Stephenson reminds producers of the silver lining in this cloud.

“Remember what the pandemic economy looked like just a little over two months ago,” he said. “It was absolutely devastating. Cheese was at $1.00/lb, and milk dumping was unprecedented.

“Now, as we look at things, it’s going to be better than we expected then,” he said showing the All-Milk price for 2020 is now forecast to come in at just under $18 for the year, but that many farms will net $20 per hundredweight for the year via the combination of Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) and Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) payments.

He estimates 2020 DMC payments at the $9.50 coverage level should net 66 cents across annual production for the year while CFAP payments have produced, so far, an impact equal to $1.55 per hundredweight across annual production.

For many producers, however, it won’t feel like $20. It might not even feel like $18.

Agricultural Prices 07/31/2020

USDA NASS reported June All-Milk prices last Friday, July 31. The range from high to low is $8, nearly double the normal range. At $18.10, the U.S. average All-Milk price did push the Dairy Margin Coverage milk margin above the highest payout level at $9.99.

Take June milk checks for example. USDA announced Friday, July 31 that the June U.S. All-Milk price was $18.10. That’s almost $3 below the Class III price of $21.04 for June, something we just don’t see.

Worse, USDA’s own report showed an $8.00 per hundredweight spread between the lowest All-Milk price reported at $14.80 for Michigan and the highest reported at $22.70 for South Dakota. This unprecedented spread is almost double the normal range from top to bottom. (Table 1)

Also unprecedented is the Pennsylvania All-Milk price reported by USDA for June at $16.30. That’s a whopping $1.80 below the U.S. All-Milk price when normally the state’s All-Milk price is 30 to 60 cents above the U.S. average.

The same thing can be said for Southeast fluid markets and other regions where a mixed products, classes and de-pooling of higher-value milk left coffers lacking for producer payment in the pool, and results varied in how co-ops and handlers  compensated producers outside the pool.

Dairy producers participating in the June milk check survey announced in Farmshine a few weeks ago, have reported gross pay prices that averaged fully $2 below the respective USDA All-Milk prices calculated for their state or region. Net prices, after deductions, averaged $4 below, and the same wide $8 spread from top to bottom averages was seen in this data from over 150 producers across six of the 11 Federal Orders. (Table 2)

This all creates an additional wrinkle in terms of the impact on the DMC margin, which was announced this week at $9.99 for June – 49 cents over the highest coverage level of $9.50 in the DMC program. This margin does not reflect anything close to reality on most farms in June and potentially July.

Large, unexpected and unprotected revenue gap

Normally the All Milk price is higher than Class III, and the cost of managing risk when the market moves higher is then covered by the performance of the cash price, or milk check, instead of the hedge, forward contract or revenue insurance. The inverse relationship in June and July between blend prices and Class III price, left a large, unexpected and unprotected revenue gap.

For its part, USDA AMS Dairy Programs defines the All Milk price in an email response recently as “a measurement of what plants paid the non-members and cooperatives for milk delivered to the plant before deduction for hauling, and this includes quality, quantity and other premiums and is at test. The NASS price should include the amount paid for the ‘not pooled milk.’”

USDA’s response to our query further confirmed that, “The Class III money still exists in the marketplace. It is just that manufacturing handlers are not required to share that money through the regulated pool.”

MilkCheckSurvey080320

By the looks of the milk check data from many areas (Table 2), most of this value was not shared back to producers, with a few notable exceptions. However, economists project the situation for July milk will be worse in this regard.

The factors depressing June and July FMMO uniform prices, USDA All-Milk prices and producer mailbox milk check prices are three-fold: the 6 to 8-week lag-time in advance-pricing of the Class I Mover, the new method of averaging to calculate the Class I Mover, and de-pooling of the higher-value Class III milk. All three factors are rooted in the $7 to $10 divergence between Class III and IV in June and July.

The part of the equation attributed to the new Class I Mover calculation is perhaps most discouraging because this is not money producers will eventually see. On the other hand, the lost value from the advance-pricing lag-time is eventually “caught up” in future milk checks. Most of the discount to come in July farm-level prices and negative PPDs in future months vs. Class III will be from the divergent factors that are not reconciled later.

Demand drivers differ for Class III vs. IV

Driving Class III $7 to $10 above Class IV was the abrupt turnaround in the cheese market, fed by strong retail demand, the resupply of foodservice channels, a significant May rebound in exports of cheese and whey, significant declines in cheese imports in the March through June period, and new government purchases of cheese for immediate distribution under CFAP.

On the flipside, Class IV value weakened at the same time as butter and powder did not have as many competing demand drivers. Additionally, butter stocks were overhanging the market, despite butter being the dairy product that saw the very highest increase in retail demand during the March through June Coronavirus shutdown period with retail butter sales up 46% over year ago.

Butter and powder production in the U.S. are mainly through co-op owned and managed facilities, while cheese production is a mix of co-op, private and mixed plant ownership.

When co-ops petitioned USDA for a temporary Class I floor hearing, most of the pushback came from the Midwest, and there were calls instead for government direct payments and cheese purchases for distribution to bring down what had been a growing cheese inventory. A stabilizer, or “snubber” on the Class I Mover calculation would have helped avoid much of this unrecouped discount on All-Milk price compared with Class III that affected most of the country.

While cheese moved to retail, foodservice, government purchases and export, butter was mainly relying on the surge in retail sales. Butter and milk powder were not draws in government CFAP purchases.

Overall, however, CFAP has not been the biggest driver in the cheese rally, according to Stephenson, although it added another demand driver to the Class III mix.

He notes that while the government CFAP purchases included a lot of cheese, those purchases accounted for 10% of the cheese price rally in June and July. The rest was fueled by retail demand staying strong and restaurants reopening and refilling supply chains, along with strong demand for other dairy products at retail, such as fluid milk. Producers were also pulling back to avoid overbase penalties. These factors combined to reduce cheese production in May and June, while demand drivers reduced inventory vs. demand.

Other dairy products also saw higher retail demand and were included to some degree in the USDA’s CFAP purchases, but without the same level of visible pull for the trade.

Import/export and inventory equation differs for Class III vs. IV

In taking a closer look at imports and exports relative to inventory to gauge differences between the product mix for Class III vs. Class IV, there are some key differences on both sides of that equation.

Exports of cheese in May were up 8%, and whey exports up 16% over year ago, according to U.S. Dairy Export Council.

Meanwhile butter and butterfat exports were down 7% in May, and down 21% below year ago year-to-date.

Powder exports did break records up 24% for May on skim milk powder. Whole milk powder exports were up 83% in May and 44% year-to-date.

On the import side of the equation, cheese imports were down 13% in the March through June period vs. year ago, according to USDA’s Dairy Import License Circular.

Non-cheese imports, on the other hand, were up 37% above year ago at the same time.

One factor hanging over Class IV markets is the butter inventory — up 11% over year ago — despite significant draw-down month-to-month and retail sales volume being almost 50% higher than a year ago throughout the Covid period.

While U.S. dairy imports are dwarfed in volume by U.S. exports, overall, it is notable that the 37% increase in non-cheese imports included 17% more butter and butter substitute imported compared with a year ago during the March through June period and up 28% year-to-date. Furthermore, whole milk powder imports were up by 25% in the March through June period.

Looking ahead

In a dairy market outlook recently, both Stephenson and professor emeritus Bob Cropp said these wide swings that are creating deep discounts are expected to begin moving toward more normal pricing relationships after August, with Class III and IV prices both forecast to be in the $16s by the end of the year, and in the $16s and $17s for 2021.

Already this week, CME cheese has slipped below the $2 mark, pushing August Class III futures under the $20 mark and September into the mid-to-high $16s. Spot butter tumbled to $1.50/lb, pushing Class IV futures down into the low $13s — keeping the divergence between Class III and IV in place.

Experts encourage producers to be thinking more holistically about the milk markets in planning risk management and not to look at Class III as the leading indicator of which direction the market will take.

This makes any discussion of “margin” based on a Class III milk price irrelevant to the reality under the present conditions. In short, risk management tools did what they were designed to do, but new challenges on the cash price, or milk check side, will change how producers implement and use these tools, or blends of tools, in the future.

“Class III might be a wonderful market for cheese, but it’s not reflecting the entire dairy industry. Risk managers are losing margin on contracts that were meant to protect them from market risk,” says Basse.

“We normally trade at an All-Milk premium to the CME Class III. Today, that has changed dramatically,” he adds. “We are at a significant discount to the CME. We just don’t see these discounts relative to the CME. It is unprecedented.”

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Global dairy thoughts Part 5: First half 2018 butter, milk, cream imports climbed!

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Timelines show how domestic dietary guidelines, Obama/Vilsack school milk rules and ramped up low-fat and fat-free dairy promotion through GENYOUth and FUTP60 all laid the groundwork for declining Class I fluid milk sales to pave the way for flat pricing and increased exports (now coincidentally under the industry leadership of former Sec Vilsack). Then consumers learned the truth and began coming back to whole milk and butter and full-fat cheeses even while the government turns a deaf ear in regards to the rules about feeding our schoolchildren. So what did U.S. companies and cooperatives do to keep that milk price flat enough for the export market this year? They imported more butter, milk and cream in first half 2018!

By Sherry Bunting, originally published in Farmshine, September 7, 2018

BROWNSTOWN, Pa. — Let’s take a look at the overall global dairy trade balance of the U.S.

In gross numbers, the balance is positive, showing the U.S. is winning new market share on the side of exports over imports. But this tells only part of the story, ignoring the potential milk market impacts of substantial increases in imports of milkfat at this critical time during the first six months of 2018.

In June 2018, Global Dairy Thoughts Part 3 and Part 4 covered some of the Federal Order pricing impacts of rapidly expanding exports alongside a diminishing Class I utilization. While per-capita milk consumption has steadily declined since 1980, the total packaged milk sales held their own due to population growth.

globalthoughtspartfive-chart1That is, until we hit 2009-10, when the third and fourth layers (see Chart 1 above) were added to the lowfat-push — that consequently pulled total fluid milk sales into the bucket at the same time that exports began their rapid ascent.

Expanding export utilization hits Class I utilization with a double-whammy: Smaller piece in a bigger pie, even if consumption losses are stabilized. We’ll revisit that in a future part of this series on dairy policy and logistics.

In looking at imports and doing trend comparisons for farm milk prices, fluid milk sales, total exports, total imports and the large increase so far this year in imports of butter and butteroil as well as steady increases in imports of milk and cream (condensed, non-condensed, liquid, powder, sweetened, unsweetened), there are some correlations. (Chart 2 below)

globalthoughtspartfive-chart-2

From 2005 forward, the national average all-milk price moved in patterns concave to the corresponding imports of butter/butteroil and milk/cream on the timeline. While the totals are not huge, we all know what “a little more” can mean on the supply side when it comes to milk prices.

In the first-half of 2018, for example,  the U.S. imported 12% more butter and butteroil and 11% more condensed milk and cream, according to the European Commission’s Milk Market Observatory published August 14, 2018. (Charts 3 and 4 below)

globalthoughtspartfive-chart3

globalthoughtspartfive-chart4

While the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) reports that first half 2018 dairy exports of milk powders, cheese, butterfat, whey and lactose topped 1.14 mil. tons to set a new record-high – up 20% from year ago, some interesting things were also happening on the import side.

Even though the USDEC data dashboard continues to show total imports accounting for a flat line at 4% or less of the milk supply on a solids basis, while exports accounted for 16.8% in the first six months of 2018, there are some interesting aspects of the import picture related to ‘what’ and ‘when’.

According to the August 14 EC statistical report ranking top-10 importers and exporters of various dairy commodities, the U.S. ranked third in butter and butteroil imports, up 12% from year ago and not far behind China (1) and Russia (2) during the first half of 2018.

The U.S. also ranked fourth in imports of condensed milk and cream – up 11% compared with a year ago.

When butter substitutes, containing over 45% butterfat, are included in the butter and butteroil import total, as documented at the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) import monitoring website, the U.S. butter/butteroil total rises by more than 200% during the past three quarters (Sept. 2017 through June 2018) compared with the same nine months a year ago.

While half of the butter and butteroil imports came to the U.S. from EU countries, a majority of the other half came from Mexico, according to the USITC website listings under various Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) codes.

In the condensed milk and cream category, 8% of U.S. imports came from the EU, according to the EC report.

Sifting through the tedious lists and multiple codes and combinations at the USITC website, it appears the U.S. imported quite a bit of condensed milk and cream from Mexico, a little from Canada (though less from Canada than a year ago), and the remainder from sources scattered around the globe — even China.

For the past nine months, Sept. 2017 through June 2018, the condensed milk and cream, unsweetened, category of imports was up 44% in powder or granular form compared with the same period a year ago, while milk and cream imports, unconcentrated, unsweetened, and still in liquid form, were up 22%.

Imports of sweetened condensed milk and cream were up 7% and mainly from Mexico.

Of course, the U.S. remains the top importer of casein and caseinates, even though those imports were down 15% from a year ago during the first half of 2018, according the EC report.

Doing the math on milk protein concentrate (MPC) imports for the nine months from September 2017 through June 2018 listed at the USITC site, MPC imports in both the 0404 and 3500 HTS codes, combined, were down 1.3% compared with the same period a year earlier.

On the other hand, imports of milk protein isolates (MPI) were up 31% from Sept. 2017 through June 2018 compared with the same three quarters a year ago.

Looking further into other categories, imports of “textured protein substance, including dairy” were up 40% for the past nine months compared with a year ago.

In the significant dairy-containing “food prep” categories — including infant formula and having various percentages of milk solids and butterfat — imports were up 7% during the past nine months compared with a year ago. In this particular category, including confectionary products containing significant milk solids, Canada was a primary source, along with EU countries as well as some of these imports coming from Chile and other South American countries.

Process cheese product imports were up 46% during the past nine months compared with a year earlier.

While U.S. imports of ice cream were down relative to year ago, the total when combined with import categories in other HTS codes for “edible ice containing dairy” tallied an import total that was up collectively by more than 200% over year ago during the past nine months.

To read Parts 1 through 4, click these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

And stay tuned for this series to continue as 2019 trends develop abroad and on the homefront.

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In light of trade news, Canadian dairy quota, Cl. 7, tariff situation explained

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Should Canada make major concessions on the high tariffs on dairy imports that are part of its supply-managed dairy system? In a word: No. There is room to negotiate thresholds, but what right does the U.S. have to demand that they end a system that works for them? What right, especially as Canada has taken steps to manage how it determines quota as fat demand and protein demand are not moving together? Here’s what you won’t read elsewhere about the new Class 7 pricing and why it was implemented in Canada so that Canadian processors can use competitively-priced Canadian-produced protein solids that ride along with the now high-demand butterfat (on which their quota is based). Canada and the U.S. import and export dairy products and milk back and forth across the border with low tariffs up to a certain threshold. Perhaps, in the case of Canada, the U.S. should just reciprocate with high over-quota tariffs and tighter quota thresholds on Canadian fluid milk exports we know head south of the border. Canadian farmers have taken a step to show a willingness to be responsible in this discussion. They have moved to control their exports by reducing quota up to 3% this year after seeing 25% growth related almost exclusively to butterfat demand over the past 4 years. 

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, August 24, 2018

Canada8854w.jpgALBANY, N.Y. — “Cycles don’t exist in a supply-managed system,” said Canadian dairy farmer Nick Thurler. He sits on the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) board and operates a dairy farm of 500 registered Holsteins with his brother and their sons.

Thurler9413wThurler was a presenter at the Dairy Summit organized by Agri-Mark in Albany, New York on August 13. The summit gathered 350 people, half of them dairy farmers, and many of the producers in attendance being on various U.S. milk cooperative boards.

Thurler explained how the Canadian milk quota system works and some of the changes they have seen over the past three years in response to increased demand for butterfat.

He noted that the entire system is completely run by dairy farmers via provincial boards and that there are 450 processors in Canada with 80 to 85% of the country’s milk marketed to Parmalat, Saputo, Agropur, and Arla.

Thurler explained how the Canadian quota is based on kilograms of butterfat production per day.  All milk is sold to the provincial boards and they look after all the pickup and delivery of milk to the plants.

Canada9386web.jpgA government entity audits the processor stocks, which weighs into the market needs.

Quota value was capped some years ago at $24,000 per cow and new quota is distributed by dividing half equally over all producers and then the second half is prorated up to 10% of an individual producer’s current quota.

Meetings are held with processors and government once a year to “discuss the issues.”

The Canadian milk prices are determined with a formula that is 50% based on the change in cost of production at the farm level and 50% on the consumer price index.

Thurler said the current price to farmers stands at around $25 in U.S. dollars.

“It’s actually a little lower now because we have a little too much milk in the system,” he said, explaining that quota this year is being cut by up to 3% to balance that.

As noted around the world, demand for butterfat has increased, and since this is how Canadian quota is determined, increases in quotas continued higher over the past three to four years.

In addition, as demand for butter and cream increased, farmers became acutely aware of how their imports were increasing.

Thurler noted that when he got on the DFO board in 2014, “It drove me nuts the amount of butter we were importing.”

Canada allows imports to a certain threshold and after that, imposes high tariffs to protect its farmers. But as demand for butter increased — and Canadian farmers were just beginning to fill quota expansion to address that — U.S. processors (some of them Canadian-owned) saw the concentrated proteins product from the technology of ultrafiltered milk did not “fit” any category in the harmonized tariff schedule. Thus, the U.S. butter processors and cooperatives could, and did, export ultrafiltered milk (wet concentrated protein solids) to Canadian cheese and yogurt processors — free of tariffs.

Over the last three to four years, as Canadian dairy quota increased, producers had some difficulty keeping up with that progressive expansion of 4% per year in butterfat production, and could recoup their own previously-unfilled quota within a time frame.

These dynamics led to a combined surge in milk production in Canada coming into this year, up nearly 25% compared with four years ago.

As they were supplying more of the increased butterfat needs, they needed a market for the residual skim that was costing producers a lot in drying costs. This is why and when the Class 7 pricing was implemented to allow Canadian producers to offer skim solids associated with the butterfat demand growth their expanded quota supplies.

Under Class 7 pricing, these wet protein solids — remaining after the cream is separated — can be sold to their own processors at globally competitive prices, thereby avoiding the drying costs, and consequently at the same time, reducing the incentive for Canadian processors to import these protein solids (ultrafiltered milk) from the U.S. and other sources.

Thurler said in an interview after his presentation that it was never the intention to implement this Class 7 pricing as a tool for creating Canadian exports to compete with the U.S., but rather to align Canada’s milk production growth opportunities between producers and processors in a way that uses both the rapidly increasing demand for fat, on which their quota system is based, and the slower demand increase for skim. That pricing still uses an 83% to 17% split between domestic quota pricing and global pricing so that it still reasonably fits their supply-managed system.

Thurler had also indicated that Class 7 was put in place after a review by WTO lawyers to make sure it was compliant. Canada is allowed to export “some” dairy under its current trade agreements.

After this report was published, public statistics on global dairy trade were revealed, showing that Canada accounts for less than half of one percent of total global dairy exports.

Additional data for first 6 months 2018 from EU reporting (Milk Market Observatory)  These exporter rankings: Canada ranked 7th in SMP exports at 35,344 tons, up 14% over first half 2017, but just 2.8% of top 10 total (1.3 mil ton); U.S. was 2nd at 386,766 ton, +25%. In Casein exports, Canada ranked 9th at a paltry 210 ton, up 64% but just 0.02% (2/10ths of one percent) of top 10 total (90,000 ton); US ranked 4th at 1822 ton, up 3%. In Whey powder exports, Canada ranked 4th at 34,133 tons, up 8%, but 4.8% of top 10 total (711,931 ton); U.S. ranked 2nd at 282,893 tons, up 16%.

In the first 6 months of 2018, Canada imported 19% less butterfat and butteroil than year ago, but was still 10th in top 10 IMPORTER of butterfat at over 10,000 ton.

Interestingly, the U.S. was the 3rd highest butterfat and butteroil IMPORTER after China (1) and Russia (2). The U.S. imported 12% more butterfat and butteroil than year ago in the first 6 months of 2018, and more than twice as much as Canada, at over 22,000 tons. The U.S. also ranked 4th in condensed milk imports, up 11% at 18,117 tons during the first 6 months of 2018 — particularly in the so-called ‘spring flush’ months of April, May and June.

Stay tuned.

Dear Trump and Trudeau: The dairy debacle doesn’t have to be this way

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canada-us-cowDairy epicenter of trade friction between leaders

By Sherry Bunting

originally published in Farmshine, June 15, 2018

QUEBEC — Dairy remains at the epicenter of a trade dispute between the U.S. and Canada.

President Donald Trump and his team have been busy renegotiating NAFTA and looking at the TPP, and while progress was being made in many areas, dairy has become a sticking point that has led to friction and word-volleys between President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the aftermath of the G7 meeting in Quebec in June.

Headlines after the G7 upset proclaimed that the U.S. is demanding an end to Canada’s dairy supply management system. Actually, President Trump is more specifically seeking an end to the 270% tariffs paid on U.S. dairy exports to Canada.

While the tariffs are much smaller on dairy exports that fall within Canada’s quota of 10% of their domestic production, these tariffs rise exponentially to as much as 313% on dairy exports to Canada beyond the import quota amounts.

On the U.S. side of the import/export coin, import license figures show that DFA holds much of the fluid milk import quota exported to the U.S. from Canada. Many other companies also import dairy products from Canada; however, the value of U.S. dairy imports from Canada is just 20% of the value of dairy the U.S. annually exports to Canada.

In other words, the U.S. exports five times the amount of dairy products to Canada that Canada exports to the U.S. (on a value, not volume, basis) even though Canadian tariffs are high, and U.S. tariffs are low.

Who is advising the President on dairy? National Milk Producers Federation? Dairy processing interests in Wisconsin (Speaker Paul Ryan’s home state) and New York (Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s home state)? Those two states had been selling ultrafiltered milk north of the border through a loophole that ended two years ago when Canada began its Class 7 pricing for milk destined to be used in products that are exported. This allowed expansion of Canadian quota to fill the growing demand for milkfat in domestic products by providing an off-valve to be competitive exporting the skim milk that rides along with that milkfat.

The issue arises from, first, the loss of a market for U.S. ultrafiltered dairy protein to Canadian manufacturers of cheese and other dairy products, which for several years has been exported to Canada — without tariffs — because it wasn’t a product defined in the tariff schedule.

What changed? Canada added its new Class 7, which allows Canadian processors to purchase milk  (skim) from Canadian farms at lower prices when it is used to offset the increase in butterfat demand (the other part of the milk) sold into their domestic market where pricing is governed by producer-run milk marketing boards to support the country’s milk production quota system.

Canada has allowed farms to increase milk production quotas by 4 to 6% annually over the past four years due to greater domestic demand for butterfat. This leaves more skim floating around to be absorbed in their relatively ‘closed’ dairy market.

The new Class 7, in Canada, allows processors to make skim milk powder — and other dairy protein ingredients — at much lower costs to be able to then export the excess at prices below the global market, because the majority of the producer pricing is still based on the stability of milk supply quotas set by domestic use on a milkfat basis. In spite of this, Canada exports less than 5% of the world’s skim milk powder but does export a modest amount of “food prep” products containing dairy.

The loss of an export market for U.S. ultrafiltered milk solids going to Canada is not the biggest concern. The growing U.S. concern is that the Canadian Class 7 pricing scheme has provided the means for Canada to sell increasing amounts of skim solids to Mexico, which is currently the number-one export destination for U.S. skim milk powder, and that this can increase as quotas expand, at the same time reducing the need for butterfat imports from the U.S. (Canada recently showed a sign of good faith by reducing quota by 3% this year even though quota is based on butterfat demand that is increasing. They are trying to manage the skim portion without exporting more than what they are supposed to in their supply-managed system).

Trudeau knows that his party will lose support from Quebec if he does not stand firm on the supply-managed system for dairy. Moreover, this system has been in place for over 60 years, and what makes it work is the protection from imports via high tariffs.

Does the U.S. have the right to demand our ally and trading partner, Canada, give up its dairy supply management system? And if they did give it up through a transitional process over 10 years, could they not become an even more competitive force on global markets?

Multi-national dairy processors have long sought an end to Canada’s dairy supply management system because their growth in Canada is limited by the fact that they must apply for processing quota — allotted for processors to make dairy products only in amounts that reflect Canada’s domestic supply and demand.

Canadian companies — like Saputo and Agropur — in fact, have expanded processing capacity in the U.S., in order to produce dairy products with U.S. milk for the U.S. and global markets.

That said, is it really smart for the U.S. to demand that Canada end its supply-managed dairy system?

When we say “America first” in trade, should we not expect Canada to reply with “Canada first” as they negotiate?

The point here is two-fold. First, the U.S. could learn something by evaluating how Canada is using its new export (Class 7) to price its “growth” milk, mainly the skim milk that rides along with the increased demand for milkfat.

As consumers learn the truth about full fat dairy, both here and around the world, more milk is needed to supply the increased demand for fat, while not all of the skim is in equally high demand until more processing innovations are in place.

This is a new dairy market development both nations must deal with in their respective systems that were designed to accommodate the past 40-years of flawed lowfat diet dogma.

Instead of simply pointing fingers at Canada, should the U.S. not be analyzing its own government-controlled pricing fixtures? After all, the relationship between USDA and NMPF is a tight one. Not only do their economists float from one entity to the other in their careers, the two jointly control the Federal Order rulemaking process from how petitions are submitted to how hearings are administrated to how NMPF member-cooperatives bloc-vote for their farmer member-owners.

We could benefit from better negotiations with our friend to the North, but now we have gotten into a spitting-match over a system that Canada’s dairy farmers have invested millions into and where most seem to oppose dismantling.

Yet Canada has found a way to participate in the global dairy market by making a pricing loophole to gain export sales for their dairy proteins while ending a loophole the U.S. dairy industry was previously exploiting by exporting ultrafiltered milk to Canada — a double-whammy for the U.S.

The U.S. and Canada have a long alliance on many fronts as nations, and also within dairy. One has only to attend the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin and other dairy events and exchanges to see a legacy of competitive camaraderie between our nations.

Let’s not allow the agendas of multi-national dairy processors to drive a wedge.

Is the strong rhetoric surrounding this dairy dispute — and the demands about ending Canada’s supply management — just President Trump’s negotiating tactic of laying the whole game on the table before figuring out how to arrange the pieces in a way that both nations can accept?

If I had Trump’s ear on this issue, I would caution him about hidden agendas among those advising him on dairy.

I would ask him to spend time on a dairy farm, with a room full of dairy farmers, to understand that, yes, all is fair in business as they each seek markets and growth opportunities, but that most U.S. producers do not want to prop themselves up by tearing down their neighbors. There are far deeper problems in the U.S. dairy industry at the moment.

I would ask Trump to stand firm on explaining that Canada can’t have it both ways — with supply-managed dairy production and import tariffs on one side, plus selling their Class-7 priced milk powder at globally low prices to obtain new export markets for their excess on the other.

I would ask both leaders to grapple with their nation’s  respective choices: The U.S. has already chosen a global pathway for agriculture and dairy. Canada has chosen a domestic pathway with supply management. We can either compromise and work together to develop a hybrid approach, or we can each accept the consequences of the respective choices our nations have made in this regard.

The U.S. could put tariffs on Canadian milk and dairy products, and develop an export class for pricing our own excess growth milk to compete globally while stabilizing domestic-use prices — similar to Canada’s new construct — or we can convince our neighbors to limit their growth, within their supply-managed system, so as not to continue expanding via the Class 7 export pricing in a way that intrudes on the dairy export markets we have cultivated in other countries, such as Mexico.

A similar spitting-match between our countries ended the U.S. Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for beef and pork. That was merely a labeling attempt to identify U.S. produced meat from conception to consumption so that U.S. consumers could choose to support U.S. farmers and ranchers. Canada was among the nations that had taken the U.S. to WTO court a few years ago, and the result was that the U.S. Congress ended COOL to avoid fines, and this has hurt U.S. beef producers.

President Trump has said recently that the U.S. is not planning to pull out of the WTO, but it does want treatment that is more fair.

Now, here we go again, with the shoe on the other foot. This time, Canada’s sacred cow — supply managed dairy and high import tariffs — are being questioned. But in reality, the Class 7 pricing policy is the more pragmatic concern.

Instead of both nations trying to have it both ways while our leaders volley back and forth in a spitting-match on tariffs and mandates and the like — maybe we could all concentrate on negotiating outcomes that are focused on the farming side and not so much the multi-national processing side — to make farming great again.

After all, as go our farmers, so go our nations.

Author’s July 14 update: It was reported within the past 10 days that Quebec, Canada’s largest dairy-producing province, may be softening its stance to reconsider the Class 7 milk price policy to ease tensions between the U.S. and Canada. Bloomberg News reported that Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard met with U.S. Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue, noting that the Class 7 pricing policy is the main sticking point — not Canada’s supply management system of domestic milk quotas and import tariffs. In a recent televised interview, Secretary Perdue said: “The U.S. is not about trying to get Canada to ditch its supply management system…” He explained that if Canada is going to have a supply management system, “you’ve got to manage the supply, and not over-produce and not over-quota to where you dump milk solids on the world market and depress prices for our producers.” The Canadian Class 7 export pricing — in place for the past 18 months — has facilitated the export of excess milk proteins while blocking most dairy product imports. The U.S. is not alone in this concern as other countries are also affected by the movement of the lower-priced Canadian skim milk powder (SMP) to markets served by nations that do not have a supply-managed system and which do not place extremely high tariffs on dairy imports. For the first four months of 2018, Canada has doubled its SMP exports compared with year ago and by 95% over the levels prior to the 2017 start of the Class 7 pricing, which allows milk to be priced much lower when used for products that are exported, and this is doable when the main portion of Canadian farm milk pricing is stable and higher because it is matched to their domestic usage on a milkfat basis.