Dairy groups strengthen ties to promote sound science in trade policy

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) and Sociedad Rural Argentina (SRA) today formalized an agreement to foster cooperation and collaboration between the three groups to advocate for science-based regulations across food and agricultural trade policy.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among the three groups sets forth a broad set of principles to guide collaboration on key issues that affect their members. The agreement spans two years and includes a strong focus on food policy priorities as well as Codex, sustainability, and food systems issues.

“U.S. dairy producers share common interests with their counterparts in Argentina, including global leadership on sustainability and regulatory standards,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “SRA and its member recognize that we must ground new and evolving rules in the latest and best science, rather than allowing other agendas to distort food and ag policy.”

“We are proud to strengthen our partnership with Argentine agricultural producers on issues of common concern,” said Krysta Harden, president and CEO of USDEC. “Together we will work to ensure international regulatory policy is based in science, while we also endeavor to reduce unnecessarily burdensome barriers to trade between our two nations.”

“From the Sociedad Rural Argentina, we continue to work hard in pursuit of free trade, based on clear and fair rules, to achieve structural reforms to international trade in agricultural products, and in particular dairy products where there is great protectionism,” said Nicolás Pino, president of the SRA. “In this sense, we celebrate this agreement with North American milk producers and exporters that seeks to strengthen joint actions on the international agenda.”

The MOU between NMPF, USDEC and SRA complements agreements signed this year with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Pan American Dairy Federation (FEPALE), providing USDEC and NMPF an additional avenue to communicate and engage with stakeholders in Latin America.