Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) has accepted 13 requests for export assistance from Land O’Lakes, Maryland Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association, Michigan Milk Producers Association and Northwest Dairy Association (Darigold) to sell 2.028 million pounds of Cheddar, Gouda and Monterey Jack cheese and 2.457 million pounds of butter to customers in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The product will be delivered in January through June 2014.

Year-to-date, CWT has assisted member cooperatives in selling 2.736 million pounds of cheese and 2.989 million pounds of butter to seven countries on three continents. These sales are the equivalent of 97.6 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis.

Assisting CWT members through the Export Assistance program positively impacts producer milk prices in the short-term by helping to maintain inventories of cheese and butter at desirable levels. In the long-term, CWT’s Export Assistance program helps member cooperatives gain and maintain market share, thus expanding the demand for U.S. dairy products and the farm milk that produces them.

CWT will pay export assistance to the bidders only when delivery of the product is verified by the submission of the required documentation.

The CWT Export Assistance program is funded by voluntary contributions from dairy cooperatives and individual dairy farmers. The money raised by their investment is being used to strengthen and stabilize the dairy farmers’ milk prices and margins. For more information about CWT, visit CWT.coop.