Idaho Dairy Farmer Goes Before Senate To Stress Importance Of USMCA Enforcement

Allen Huttema, Executive Committee Member of the National Milk Producers Federation, recently spoke before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee stressing the importance of enforcing the USMCA. The Parma, ID area dairy producer said it's important that all countries, particularly Canada, holds to even the spirit of the agreement.

"Making sure that our dairy products, the amount that we intended to get into there, that that happens. And making sure that they do not continue to grow their exports."

Huttema noted that there is less concern about Mexico, but they do want to get thing going and making sure they hold to side letters on common cheese names. He said that this is not a direct attack on Canadian dairy farmers.

"It is about upholding an agreement. They both stopped imports of our dairy products, which hurt our pay price because it kept more product in our country. They also started taking international markets away from us."

He said for Pacific Northwest producers, the hope is to get branded product into Canada because the pandemic border closure has prevented Canadians from coming into the U.S.

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