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LAWMAKERS CRITICAL OF DELAY IN DAIRY AND FLUID MILK CHECKOFF REPORTS FROM USDA
Jan. 12, 2024
Agri-Pulse reports:
Internal USDA emails obtained by Agri-Pulse lay out the department's ongoing struggles in meeting the annual July 1 reporting deadlines for two major checkoff programs, those for dairy and fluid milk.
To read the emails click here.
A group of lawmakers critical of checkoffs wrote USDA last fall asking why it hadn't posted reports for the dairy and fluid milk checkoffs for 2020, 2021 and 2022. The Agricultural Marketing Service has since uploaded the 2020 report. To read that report click here.
But the emails indicate the agency last summer was still reviewing economic analysis from Texas A&M for the 2021 report and waiting on economists from the university to begin work on the 2022 analysis.
"There is overall a problem with requiring the Report every July," Dana Coale, the deputy administrator of AMS's Dairy Program, told the agency's associate administrator Erin Morris in a June 23 email. "The Boards and State and Regionals do not have their financials completed until about 6 months following the end of the year or later, depending on various situations. Consequently, we will never be able to make the July 1 timeframe as required by the legislation" that authorized the programs.
From checkoff critics: Dee Laninga of Farm Action Fund says there's no excuse for USDA taking several years to issue reports. "The six-month lag for completed financials might justify being six months behind schedule, but USDA only published the 2020 report in 2023 after pressure from Farm Action and members of Congress. The reports for 2021 and 2022 are still outstanding. This is a flimsy excuse for failing to do their job."
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