Missouri Dairy Endorses Federal Milk Marketing Order

Missouri Dairy endorses the federal milk marketing order. is joined by nine other organizations who endorse the joint statement.

Missouri dairy leaders were present at this important discussion on milk pricing. Talks circled around the theme of returning to the familiar higher of class 3&4, make allowance and perhaps a class 1 differential.

The AFBF-NMPF statement reads:

“We support the federal milk marketing order (FMMO) system as key to fair market-based farmer milk pricing and recognize the importance of periodically updating the program to reflect changes in the dynamic U.S. dairy industry. With the last major update to the FMMO system occurring in 2000, we believe it is time to consider improvements that better reflect today’s milk markets.

“In addition, the pandemic-related market disruptions of 2020 also highlighted the need to modernize the program so that it can better mitigate the impacts on producers of disruptions in milk pricing such as occurred then.  At that time, a combination of federal order price formulas, temporary market imbalances, and sudden demand disruptions created disorderly marketing of milk, to the detriment of producers.

“We anticipate the prospect of a hearing conducted by USDA in 2023 that could address FMMO price formulas, including all four Classes, as well as the Class I price surface.  An amended pricing system should improve price discovery, improve the clarity of the program, continue to support timely payments to producers, and reduce price incentives to de-pool milk.

“We are encouraged by the healthy discussion at this week’s Federal Milk Marketing Order Forum and look forward to continuing the discussion about promoting a healthy dairy industry through modernization of federal order pricing.”