HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Milk Board (PMB) took no action Wed., July 1 on restoring the state’s over-order premium, leaving August pricing unresolved as well, after July became the first month in roughly four decades without a Pennsylvania over-order premium (OOP)

The issue arose only after the Board completed its brief regularly scheduled monthly sunshine meeting. During closing comments, the attorney representing the Pennsylvania Association of Milk Dealers asked whether the Board had any update on the OOP.

Chairman Rob Barley replied: “At this time we have still not come to any agreement. So there is no update.”

The past few editions of Farmshine have covered extensively the June 3 PMB over-order premium hearing and the June 12 special sunshine meeting during which it was announced that no agreement on the OOP could be reached.

Earlier in the July 1st regular sunshine meeting, the PMB approved a new sub-dealer license for Dutch Valley Food Distributors Inc., which will purchase packaged milk from New York State producers. Because its suppliers are outside Pennsylvania, no Pennsylvania milk dealer bond is required.

The approval carried notable irony.

A company bearing the distinctly Pennsylvania Dutch name of Dutch Valley will distribute packaged New York milk in Pennsylvania while the Board continues deliberating on whether to restore a premium intended to support Pennsylvania dairy farmers but which often slips through cracks or is captured by out-of-state milk supply.

The Board also approved a dealer license for KGK Productions LLC to purchase bulk milk from cooperatives for butter, cheese and other dairy products.

More than a week prior to the meeting, the PMB announced July minimum retail and resale prices, which for the first time in memory since the 1980s when the OOP became part of the state Milk Marketing Law, the OOP column on the chart reflected a zero.

What changed and what didn’t

Using Area 1 as an example, the minimum Class I wholesale price fell from $28.44 to $26.44 per hundredweight, which included a roughly $1 per cwt decline in the Federal base Class I price for July vs. June and the $1.16 OOP (50 cents OOP and 66 cents fuel adjuster) going to zero.

Meanwhile, the minimum retail whole milk price in the Area 1 example declined 11 cents per gallon, from $5.42 in June to $5.31 for July.

Importantly, the producer OOP was the only pricing component removed from the Pennsylvania calculations. The 24.16-cent-per-cwt cooperative procurement allowance remains in Pennsylvania’s minimum price formula, along with processor, dealer, retailer, packaging, delivery and other authorized cost recoveries.

The next sunshine meeting has been moved to 9 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 5.