January 10, 2025 was the deadline to conclude voting by California’s Grade A dairy producers on a referendum to alter the state’s Quota Implementation Program (QIP). QIP is the mechanism that governs California’s controversial system of dairy farm-based milk quotas. The California Department of Food and Agriculture oversees QIP.
Currently, quota holders receive premiums of
$1.40 or $1.70 per hundredweight (depending on their location). Quotas are based on milk fat. Quota pay- ments are bankrolled by deducts of about 36 cents per cwt. taken from all Grade A milk produced in the state.
The referendum for which voting ended on Jan- uary 10 was inspired by Southern California dairy producer Frank Konyn. That vote proposed lowering the QIP pay out to $1.09/cwt. for all locations. The proposal calls for lowering the deduction to pay for QIP to 18-19 cents per cwt.
TheCDFA failed to meet the legally mandated,30 day deadline for reporting results of the referendum on which voting ceased on January 10. Why? A QIP skeptic reports being told by a CDFA attorney that another branch of the Department was evaluating the legitimacy of each ballot.
Failure to meet the 30-deadline is backlogging CDFA’s administering another QIP referendum re- quest. CDFA has already certified that enough petitions from Grade A dairy producers have been received to start the process for a Termination referendum. But CDFA officials have advised Craig Gordon – a ringleader in the five-year effort to get rid of QIP – that the Termination referendum will be paused until the results of the Konyn vote are in and officials understand what the implications are for QIP’s structure relative to the Terminations petitions.
Separately, Craig Gordon has a private legal challenge against QIP in Superior Court in Sacra- mento. A hearing on that matter was delayed from January 16 to February 25. Gordon asserts that QIP assessments are a “Taking” under the Fifth Amend- ment’s Takings Clause. Holders of QIP contend that ceasing QIP would result in “taking” of an asset that they have acquired. The quota holders get a benefit and we don’t and we have stated many times they can keep the quota program, we just don’t want to be forced to play in the program, Gordon states.
Behind the scenes, California’s QIP fracas could take some wild turns. The number of QIP holders and those Grade A dairy producers who do not hold QIP is a virtual even split.”
The article was originally printed in February 2025 edition of The Milkweed.
