ARLINGTON, VA Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) has accepted 30 requests for export assistance from Bongards, Dairy Farmers of America, Darigold, Foremost Farms, Land O’Lakes, Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative, Michigan Milk Producers Association, United Dairymen of Arizona and Upstate Niagara/OATKA to sell 7.579 million pounds (3,438 metric tons) of Cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese, 1.160 million pounds (536 metric tons) of butter and 44,092 pounds of whole milk powder to customers in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Oceania. The product will be delivered February through June 2013.
Yeartodate CWT has assisted member cooperatives in selling 14.617 million pounds of cheese, 9.760 million pounds of butter and 88,185 pounds of whole milk powder to 23 countries on six continents. These sales are the equivalent of 347.7 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis. That is the annual production of 16,500 cows.
Assisting CWT members through the Export Assistance program positively impacts producer milk prices in the shortterm by helping to maintain inventories of cheese and butter at desirable levels. In the longterm, CWT’s Export Assistance program helps member cooperatives gain and maintain market share, thus expanding the demand for U.S. dairy products and the farm milk that produces them.
CWT will pay export bonuses to the bidders only when delivery of the product is verified by the submission of the required documentation.
The Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) Export Assistance program is funded by voluntary contributions from dairy cooperatives and individual dairy farmers. The money raised by their investment is being used to strengthen and stabilize the dairy farmers’ milk prices and margins. For more information about CWT, visit www.cwt.coop.
Source: The Cooperatives Working Together (CWT)
