Washington, D.C. – The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) today praised Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) for calling on Canada to finally engage on dairy market-access negotiations during high-level talks this week in Hawaii of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiation.
The letter urges Canadian Ambassador to the United States Gary Albert Doer to engage and commit to ‘significant and commercially meaningful market access for all remaining agricultural products,’ including dairy.
“We thank the Senators for their support on gaining the best deals for the U.S. dairy industry in this agreement,” said Connie Tipton, IDFA president and CEO. “Now is the time for Canada to come to the table with a commercially meaningful offer on dairy.”
Earlier this month, a group of 21 congressmen sent a letter to Doer citing Canada’s lack of engagement on dairy market-access negotiations in the TPP talks.
IDFA is seeking market access for all dairy products across all tariff lines in the TPP negotiations.
# # #
The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), Washington, D.C., represents the nation's dairy manufacturing and marketing industries and their suppliers, with a membership of 550 companies within a $125-billion a year industry. IDFA is composed of three constituent organizations: the Milk Industry Foundation (MIF), the National Cheese Institute (NCI) and the International Ice Cream Association (IICA). IDFA's nearly 200 dairy processing members run nearly 600 plant operations, and range from large multi-national organizations to single-plant companies. Together they represent more than 85 percent of the milk, cultured products, cheese, ice cream and frozen desserts produced and marketed in the United States.
Source: The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA)
