Digest Highlights: The USDA will buy $20 million worth of cheddar cheese. Kentucky grant benefits struggling consumers, producers. Find these and other news summaries affecting dairy farmers here.
USDA to make $20 million cheddar cheese purchase
The USDA will buy $20 million worth of cheddar cheese for nutrition assistance programs.
Greg Ibach, the USDA undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, announced the plans to purchase cheddar cheese under a streamlined process unveiled May 23. The cheese is part of plans to purchase $177.4 million worth of American-grown foods covering a wide rage of items, including pork, fruits, peas and beans.
Although a specific timeline was not provided, the USDA directed those companies interested in submitting bids to the web-based Supply Chain Management (WBSCM) system for the bid solicitation process. USDA will monitor market conditions for determining when to make such purchases. Details on how vendors may participate are available on the Selling Food to USDA page on the AMS website.
The contract type is anticipated to be firm-fixed price. Deliveries are expected to be to various locations in the U.S., with cheese sellers responsible for transportation costs (f.o.b.).
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) purchases food to support the National School Lunch Program, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations and the Emergency Food Assistance Program. USDA also makes emergency food purchases for distribution to victims of natural disasters.
Grant makes more dairy products available to Kentucky families
A $30,000 grant will help provide fresh milk and dairy products to Kentucky families, while offering an outlet for the state’s dairy farmers also struggling to find milk markets.
The grant, from The Dairy Alliance to God’s Pantry Food Bank, was used to acquire seven milk coolers for its Winchester and Lexington-Fayette County food pantries. The grant was awarded in conjunction with The Dairy Alliance’s Milk 2 My Plate initiative and the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s (KDA) Hunger Initiative.
“The coolers funded by this grant enable God’s Pantry to store fresh milk for four affiliate food pantries,” Commissioner Ryan Quarles said. “As a bonus, our hard-working dairy farm families will get a new market for their products. This is one small step that hopefully will lead to more such initiatives to help Kentucky’s dairy farmers.”
Winchester Farms Dairy delivered milk to God’s Pantry as part of the grant presentation. The pilot project currently provides 60 gallons of milk a week to the food bank, but God’s Pantry CEO Michael Halligan is hoping to increase volume over time.
The Dairy Alliance launched Milk 2 My Plate early this year to build an infrastructure for getting dairy products from Kentucky farms to Kentucky homes while developing relationships between processors and food banks.
Commissioner Quarles unveiled the Kentucky Hunger Initiative two years ago to bring together farmers, charitable organizations, faith groups, community leaders and government entities to look for ways to reduce hunger in Kentucky.
Dairy consumer, producer prices forecast
The USDA Economic Research Service’s monthly food price outlook is out. It includes both a Consumer Price Index (CPI), forecasting trends in prices consumers will pay for food, and a Producer Price Index (PPI), a forecast of the prices received by producers and wholesalers. As of May 25, here’s what’s expected:
• Average farm-level prices received for milk in 2018 will be down 4 to 5 percent from 2017. April 2017-18 milk prices were down 12.2 percent.
• Average prices received by milk wholesalers in 2018 will be down 3 to 4 percent from 2017. April 2017-18 prices were down 1.8 percent.
• Retail prices paid by consumers for dairy products in 2018 will be steady to 1 percent higher compared to 2017. April 2017-18 prices were down 0.4 percent.
Livestock hauling bill would ease trucking restrictions
Livestock truckers would gain some flexibility under a new bill introduced in the U.S. Senate. A bipartisan group of senators introduced the Transporting Livestock Across America Safely Act (TLAAS).
Agricultural organizations have been critical of a U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) guidelines covering hours of service (HOS) and electronic logging devices (ELD) regulations. The rule was implemented on April 1, but livestock and insect haulers were granted an exemption until June 18. Congress also included a provision in a February budget bill prohibiting authorities from enforcing the requirements for persons hauling livestock or insects through Sept. 30, 2018.
ELDs are a record-keeping device synchronized to a truck engine that logs information digitally. In real time, an ELD records data such as time spent on the road, miles driven, location and engine hours. Under the rule, truckers have an hours-of-service limit of 11 hours of driving in a 24-hour period. Drivers can be on duty a total of 14 hours consecutively, including the 11 hours of drive time. After 11 hours are reached, drivers must rest and be off duty for 10 consecutive hours.
Livestock haulers and others said the HOS stipulations made it difficult to transport livestock long distances without either stopping to unload midway at holding facilities or keeping livestock in the trailer for the 10-hour wait time. Another option to stay within regulations would be using teams of drivers, but there has been a shortage of drivers, especially for livestock transportation.
Under the proposed TLAAS, the HOS would not be applied until a driver travels more than 300 air miles from their source. It also exempts loading and unloading times from the HOS calculation of driving time.
It extends the HOS on-duty time maximum hour requirement from 11 hours to a minimum of 15 hours and a maximum of 18 hours of on-duty time.
It also grants flexibility for drivers to rest at any point during their trip without counting against HOS time.
Drivers would be allowed to complete their trip – regardless of HOS requirements – if they come within 150 air miles of their delivery point.
After the driver completes their delivery and the truck is unloaded, the driver will take a break for a period that is five hours less than the maximum on-duty time (10 hours if a 15-hour drive time). 
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Dave Natzke
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