Matters involving the “Quota Implementation Program” (QIP) remain on the front burner in California.
First, a statewide vote on the so-called “Konyn Amendment” to QIP has failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote by the state’s Grade A dairy producers. That means no changes. The voting period for that matter ended on January 9, 2025. The California Department of Food and Agriculture announced results of that vote about 10 days belatedly, on February 20.
The Konyn Amendment – crafted by David Konyn, a Southern California dairy producer — pro-posed to reduce the payment to quota holders to $1.09 per hundredweight. Quota-holders would have been paid the same amount, regardless of their location within the state. Currently, payments are either $1.40 or $1.70 per hundredweight, depending on the loca-tion. The Konyn proposal also called for reducing the deduction from all Grade A producers’ milk to$0.19/cwt. That would have been a decline from the current deduct of $0.36/cwt.
A total of 479 producers voted in that recent referendum. Of that total 241 producers (50.31%) sup-ported the proposed Konyn changes. Those supporters represented 55.94% of milk among voters. However, rules of the referendum require a two-thirds majority to amend the QIP program.
Voting against the proposed changes in this recently concluded referendum were 236 dairy producers, who represented 44.06% of farm milk.
Based upon the Konyn Amendment vote, status quo will continue for the QIP: a $0.36/cwt. deduct on all Grade A farm milk and pay-out of $1.40 to producers in the South and $1.70 to producers in the North.
Another referendum pending: Stop QIP
On referendum down, another on tap.
One day after announcing results of the prior QIP referendum, the CDFA announced another refer-endum on the subject will be held, likely in late spring 2025. This next referendum is spurred by receipt of petitions signed by more than 25% of California’s Grade A dairy producers. This petition proposes to terminate QIP. Earlier, similar petitions to end QIP have been rejected by the CDFA’s officials for various reasons, without clarification to organizers of the “Stop QIP” effort.
A CDFA announcement noted that this latest “Stop QIP” petition had been submitted to the Producer Review Board in mid-December 2024. The PRB reviewed that petition and recommended that it go to an industry referendum.
Civil legal matter bumped back again
Yet another challenge to the QIP is in the form of a civil lawsuit by dairy producer Craig Gordon. Gordon has been a ringleader of efforts to end QIP for about five years. A hearing on Gordon’s legal challenge to QIP, heard in State Superior Court in Sacramento, has again been delayed from the most recent intended date of February 25. The matter has been rescheduled for March 18, 2025.
By Pete Hardin
Originally published in the March 2025 issue of The Milkweed
