It’s the silver anniversary of the National Dairy Promotion and Research Program . . . but even its supporters acknowledge these are not golden times for dairy producers.
“I think 90% of the dairy producers in the nation are dipping into their equity to stay afloat right now,” says Joe Lyon, a dairyman from Toledo, Iowa. “At this price per hundred pounds of milk, very, very few, if any, are making any money, paying their feed bills, their vet bills and everything. It’s tough, and it’s part of the whole economy…the dairy industry’s in a crisis right now.”
 

If there’s a veteran leader of the dairy industry, Joe Lyon is it—and his wife, Duffy, is even better known than he is. She spends several days every August in a refrigerated glass booth on the Iowa State Fairgrounds carving life-sized figures out of butter, an endeavor that’s garnered national attention

But Joe can claim a distinction of his own; he was among the first 36 members of the National Dairy Board, which in turn was one of the first mandatory, nationwide commodity research and promotion programs established by the federal government. In that way, the dairy checkoff—created by an Act of Congress in 1983—blazed a trail for pork and beef (1985), soybeans (1990) and other farm commodities.
“It was a fun time to be on the first Dairy Board,” recalls Lyon, who served from 1984-90, “because you’re putting things together—you know, new programs—and that’s always a very interesting time.” He was the Board’s first Research Committee chairman, and they came up with the innovative notion of establishing Dairy Research Centers at land grant schools around the country, a concept that still exists today. “I would tell people, the reason we got it done, we weren’t smart enough to know it couldn’t be done,” Lyon chuckles. “So we got it done, before the politics and everything took over.”
He says research into ways to improve the marketability of dairy products was almost non-existent before the Board and the Centers came along; in addition to developing new products, they’ve helped to train a new generation of dairy researchers. Has the checkoff improved profitability for farmers? “Well, I think so, yeah. I hope so, because we’ve put a lot of money in it, you know, and I think it has been an aid in stabilizing consumption,” says Lyon.
John Kinsman doesn’t agree—but on the other hand, he’s not trying to end the Dairy Promotion and Research checkoff any more, either. In 1993, the Lime Ridge, Wis. dairyman led efforts to have a new vote on the checkoff; 16,000 producers signed their petitions to trigger a referendum, but dairy farmers voted to continue the checkoff. Now, Kinsman says, “I’m still critical, but we have not done any organized objections to changing it.” Instead, Kinsman and his group, National Family Farm Coalition, are trying to effect change from within; they’ve succeeded in getting one of their members named to Wisconsin’s state dairy board.
Kinsman says the whole concept of individual boards, each promoting a different commodity, is counterproductive. “The pork checkoff,” he says, “and the beef, and the chicken—they’re all saying each one is the better than the other. Some people, if they are raising more than one of those animals or commodities, they’re in competition, the same way it would be with soybeans and other crops. So it would serve the interests of the farmers better if there were just one or two boards promoting good, healthy products, and not against each other.” That way, he says, they could work together to show consumers the difference between domestically grown food and imports from China, for instance.
He thinks NFFC’s message may resonate more with the new Administration; the group’s president has already met with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. “They’ve been pleased that these people have at least listened to farmers,” he says. “In the past, we did not find that; we found that they listened to industry, and did not pay any attention to what farmers had to say.”
But Kinsman says his group does not expect a huge change, because of the entrenched nature of appointed USDA officials; when they were petitioning for a new vote on the checkoff, he says, “We met with some of the people in place that are administering these programs, and they were totally out of touch with farmers.” USDA’s offices, he recalls, were so cavernous, they needed a guide to find their way around. “There’s a lot of waste,” Kinsman says, “which would be better served by doing emergency programs for farmers, or helping look at the real problems.”
The Dairy Board already does some cooperative promotion through its partnerships program, where it piggybacks onto other national advertising both within and outside of the dairy industry. “It’s venture capital,” explains Lyon, who is still active in dairy promotions as chairman of the Iowa division of the Midwest Dairy Association. “They aren’t all going to be productive, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say.”
But Lyon does think the NDB should be more aggressive in addressing the current downturn, and some of his concerns echo those of Kinsman. He says he left a recent meeting “a little disappointed in their stance on some issues…I don’t want to do away with programs in the distance, but I think we need to devote all our resources to moving product right now, and I don’t sense that urgency among the National staff, or maybe even the National Board.”
When asked if there was a way to light a fire under the Board, Lyon laughs and says, “I tried, I tried. I wouldn’t say that they were totally in agreement with me, but you kind of expect that from people that aren’t on the farm, and they don’t realize the hurt that’s going on in the dairy industry out here on the farm, you know. It’s hard for anybody to really fathom, unless you’re part of it.” He concedes much of the budget is committed well in advance, but says, “There’s always money in the budget that can be used in crisis situations, and I think maybe that that should be put to the forefront right now.”
But the new chairwoman of the National Dairy Board, Kimberly Clauss of Hilmar, Calif., says they are putting more money into short-term promotions. One example is a partnership with pizza chain Domino’s, which will lade a new line of “American Legends” pies with 40% more cheese. “I think those will be short term answers that we can have,” she says, “and we’re also going to continue to need to work on the long term, on things like the sustainability initiatives that we are doing with the dairy industry.”
Clauss says when she was named to the Board six years ago, they were just starting to focus less on advertising and more on partnerships. She explains, “We partner with companies like McDonald’s on things like single-sized serving plastic resealable milk containers,” a concept that’s expected to give a boost to children’s consumption of beverage milk; other fast food chains have also begun using them.
“For dairy farmers it was a great deal,” Clauss goes on, “because before we were having to use our money for everything, and today we’re partnering with companies that are really helping our dollar go a lot farther in the long run.” She says the economic slump is not causing marketing partners to back out; “We have a healthy, safe, wonderful product, not only for adults but especially for children. And so, I think that consumers see that, and so do companies that want to partner with us,” she says.   
Clauss is part of a dairying family. In partnership with her sister Karen Tate, she oversees two dairies that milk 3,000 Jersey cows. Her father, Richard Clauss, is a long-time dairyman and co-founder of Hilmar Cheese Co. With her new duties, of course, Clauss is spending less time on the farm. “I am on the road quite a bit right now,” she says, “but it’s something that I really enjoy and I believe in what we’re trying to do for our industry.”
Ultimately, she says, even the time she spends off the farm will benefit her enterprise, because of the marketing opportunities the NDB is creating for dairy producers. And Joe Lyon, while more pragmatic, is also supportive. “I think it’s worked pretty well,” he says. “Like any program, it can always be improved.”