USDA restores monthly milk reports after dairy producers say they are crucial to industry

MILWAUKEE – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s statistical arm has reversed a plan to eliminate some monthly reports that dairy farmers and milk processors say are important to their business.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service said last month that it would suspend multiple reports covering at least 10 agricultural products because of $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts that had gone into effect.

Those reports included the agency’s monthly milk production estimates, which producers use to make decisions about marketing milk and other dairy products.

NASS had suspended the reports through September but now says it will provide them using information already supplied by government entities, co-operatives and other organizations. It will not survey individual milk producers, as it has in the past, because of the added expense.