The Board of Milk Control adopted an emergency rule on April 9, 2020 pertaining to milk dumped because of market conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. While in effect, the emergency rule enables the economic impact of such dumping to be spread amongst all producers that are part of Montana’s statewide pooling arrangement instead of being borne by individual producers. The emergency rule may be accessed at the following websites.
https://sosmt.gov/arm/emergency/#620-wpfd-2020
http://liv.mt.gov/Home/ARM-Notices###
The closures of schools and limitations on restaurants and other institutional users of milk have caused a significant decrease in the demand for milk in Montana. The Montana Milk Producers Association estimates a decreased milk consumption in Montana of 1,500,000 gallons for the months of March, April, and May 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. Absent demand, some processors may not purchase their normal volumes of milk and the reduced demand may cause milk to be dumped by dairy farms, which may result in no payment to those dairy producers for that dumped milk. Uniform payment is an objective of Montana’s milk market regulation that will not be achieved under these pandemic-caused circumstances. The number of dairy producers in Montana has been in decline. With a reduced market for their milk, more Montana dairy producers could go out of business. The temporary emergency rule will help ensure that there are enough dairy producers still in business when demand returns after the COVID-19 pandemic. Montana dairies have historically supplied 85% of Montana’s fluid milk demand thereby ensuring Montana citizens’ supply of milk is adequate.