“Through their representation on the Dairy Board, importers will be able to participate in the development of programs to expand demand for dairy products and dairy ingredients in the United States,” said Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Administrator Rayne Pegg.

The Dairy Promotion and Research Order (Dairy Order) states that, initially, importers will be represented on the Dairy Board by two importer members appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture. Thereafter, the importer representation on the Dairy Board will be reviewed at least once every three years, and adjusted to reflect the volume of imports relative to the domestic production of milk.

The length of a member’s term will be three years. In order to properly coordinate the terms of importers with those of dairy producer members and to stagger the two terms, initially, one importer member will serve a term ending Oct. 31, 2013, and one importer member will serve a term ending Oct. 31, 2014.

Importer nominees must be importers of dairy products and will be subject to the assessment to fund the National Dairy Promotion and Research Program. Such nominations may be submitted by individual importers of dairy products or by organizations representing dairy importers, as approved by the Secretary. Individual importers submitting nominations to represent importers on the Dairy Board must establish, to the satisfaction of the Secretary, that the person submitting the nomination is an importer of dairy products. Importer organizations must adequately represent importers of dairy products under the primary determining considerations of whether its membership consist primarily of importers of dairy products and whether a substantial interest of the organization is in the importation of dairy products. An importer means a person that imports dairy products into the United States as a principal or as an agent, broker or consignee of any person who produces or handles dairy products outside of the United States for sale in the United States, and who is listed as the importer of record for such dairy products. Nominations must be submitted by June 10, 2011.

The Dairy Board was established under the Dairy Production Stabilization Act of 1983 to develop and administer a coordinated program of promotion, research and nutrition education. The 38-member Dairy Board is authorized to design programs to strengthen the dairy industry’s position in domestic and foreign markets. The program is financed by a mandatory 15-cent per hundredweight assessment on all milk marketed commercially and a 7.5-cent per hundredweight assessment on milk, or equivalent thereof, used to produce dairy products imported into the United States.