The United States Department of Agricultue issued a proposed rule for the mandatory, electronic price reporting for cheese, butter, whey and nonfat dry milk today. For a copy of the proposed rule, click here, then scroll down to page 34004.
“This change will provide dairy farmers with more timely information and streamline our process for reporting dairy product prices,” says Rayne Pegg, Agriculture Marketing Service Administrator.
The proposal would require weekly reporting by dairy manufacturers who produce more than one million pounds of the specified products. Firms producing less than one million pounds of the specified products will be exempt.
The rule also requires the Secretary of Agriculture to publish a report each Wednesday of the information obtained the previous week. The information obtained will be used to determine minimum class prices for raw milk under Federal Milk Marketing Orders.
Currently, prices are collected weekly by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). They are then reported back out to the industry by the following Friday. In essence, the proposed rule moves the collection function from NASS to AMS, and speeds up reporting by two days.
Public comments on the proposed rule must be received by August 9, 2011. Comments may be filed by visiting www.regulations.gov. A final rule will be implemented once comments have been reviewed.
