Members of Cooperatives Working Together (CWT), the dairy farmer-funded self-help program that operates under the auspices of the National Milk Producers Federation, have voted to re-focus the seven year-old program from its "herd retirement" initiative to building export markets.
"CWT has undergone several shifts in how it has been operated since it started in 2003," said NMPF President and CEO Jerry Kozak. He added that the herd retirement program "has reached a point of diminishing returns," where there were a declining number of member farms that were expecting to use CWT as a means to liquidate their herds.
NMPF's Board of Directors voted to support a CWT program that will be funded at two cents per hundredweight, starting Jan. 1, 2011, and running through 2012. While CWT was operating its herd retirement program, members paid 10 cents per hundredweight on its members' milk volume.
