The Ocean Shipping Reform Act is now the law, but dairy officials say there is still work to do to make sure U.S. dairy products keep moving overseas. Tony Rice is the trade policy manager for the National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council. He says that despite the law, the situation hasn’t improved significantly. He says it’s important to get trade issues ironed out because the EU and New Zealand have shown they’re not going to be able to keep pace in the coming years.
“Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of difficulties with the shortage of truckers and a shortage of containers that are all compiling into a backlog throughout the entire supply chain,” Rice says. “Looking at the numbers of empty containers leaving the major west coast ports, the number hasn’t improved. It’s still around 70% for the last three to four months, that hasn’t changed since the last part of last year.”
Rice says last year U.S. dairy exporters lost about $1.5 billion due to the supply chain crunch.
Dutch Protests
Dutch dairy farmers have been protesting government plans to dramatically cut emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia. The government aims to slash nitrogen emissions by 50% by 2030. That estimates a 30% cut in the number of livestock is needed. Many farmers argue the goals are poorly conceived and unfair.
One dairy farmer provided insight to the global farmer network. She says farmers there favor regulations that balance the need to produce food with the need to protect the environment. She says they are already using precision farming techniques to conserve fertilizer along with planting cover crops. But she says farmers shouldn’t have to carry all the burden and that the government shouldn’t just target only farms and agriculture for now.
