Dairy Updates

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday, September 27, was National Chocolate Milk Day.

Chocolate milk is adored by millions of Americans nationwide and is a favorite among children. Seventy percent of the milk children consume is flavored, with chocolate being the most popular flavor. Chocolate milk is low in fat, high in nutrients, and packed with flavor.

Milk consumption, Mr. Speaker, has been declining, however, and when the National School Lunch Program removed the most popular and nutritious option from schools to only serve fat-free milk, the numbers continued to drop. As a result of these detrimental policies, we have lost nearly a generation of milk drinkers, and those milk drinkers have lost access to the best nutrition.

This detrimental policy was partially reversed when the USDA made a decision to once again allow 1 percent flavored milk back into school lunches, and I am grateful to Secretary Sonny Perdue for his leadership on the issue.

To build on this momentum, I introduced the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act last year to once again allow whole milk, both flavored and unflavored, to be offered within the program because children can greatly benefit from the essential nutrients whole milk provides.

Taking that one step further, I joined my colleague Fred Keller to introduce the GIVE MILK Act last month. The GIVE MILK Act, Mr. Speaker, gives families who use the WIC program, or Women, Infants, and Children program, more control over the nutrition of their children by making 2 percent and whole milk available through the WIC program to any child over the age of 2.

Currently, WIC participants are limited to low-fat or nonfat milk, meaning they are missing all the nutrition that comes from that milk fat.

This legislation will give families who depend on WIC more options when considering nutritional options for their children. It will also help increase milk consumption, which is a win for our dairy farmers.

I talked about this legislation, among other things, when I had the pleasure of joining the folks at the National Milk Producers Federation last week on their new podcast, ``Dairy Defined''. We covered a lot of ground, including the importance that milk plays in our diets and how coronavirus has impacted the dairy industry.

Safety net programs like the Dairy Margin Coverage program, coupled with the coronavirus relief efforts, have helped ease the burden somewhat on our producers, but times remain tough. We must continue to spread the word about these critical safety net programs so our Nation's dairy producers, those farm families, can take full advantage of all the tools at their disposal.

If there has been one positive thing that has come out of this pandemic, it is that we have seen more families returning to the dining room table, Mr. Speaker. Milk consumption has seen an uptick in the past few months and more and more Americans are benefiting from the essential nutrients that whole milk provides.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to close by thanking the hardworking men and women who have the 24/7, 365-day-a-year job of running our dairy farms. Thank you for working tirelessly to ensure that we have access to delicious, nutritious, and top-quality milk.

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