The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service has released a long-awaited final decision with reforms to pricing formulas used by the Federal Milk Marketing Order system.
“While not all of our proposals were included in the final decision, and we believe more could have been done to enhance the pricing formula, we are satisfied that the changes do not negatively impact our dairy farmer members," says Edge CEO Tim Trotter. "In aggregate, we believe the proposed reform would slightly decrease the minimum regulated price private milk buyers have to pay to pooled milk producers in the Upper Midwest order and would slightly increase the price to producers in the Central and Mideast orders. In all cases, we expect the impact on milk checks, after accounting for impact to over-order premiums, to be neutral or positive.”