Tariffs and their impact on farmers with boots on the ground have been a big topic of discussion. But the impact doesn’t stop there, as it also hurts processing companies. Sheryl Meshke, the president and CEO of Associated Milk Producers, Inc., says it’s definitely making things difficult as the company works to improve its exports.

“Yeah, I think it’s important to step back and do a real-life look at tariffs. So, though we’re primarily a domestic company selling about 95 percent of our products in our borders, we made a very pointed move in 2020 to grow that export portion, because we know about 18 percent of milk is leaving our borders, and we needed a piece of that growth. So, that, now, is done primarily through our Portage, Wisconsin facility, where we focused on value-added exports, so not the cheapest, but honing those relationships with countries and in-house distributors and in-market distributors, and so things like slice-on-slice, shred, and that consistent need that they will have for those value-added products.”

She said the cooperative has invested a lot of time, effort, and money into building up its overseas relationships.

“You know, we understand the need to level this trade playing field and really support that, but there’s a real urgency to defining these relationships. We’ve worked since 2020. Some have worked decades to build these trade relationships, and we just can’t afford, the dairy farmer can’t afford, for those to be dismantled.”