Alternative milk marketing agreements.

Existing law empowers the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to formulate stabilization and marketing plans that establish the prices to be paid by milk handlers for specified classes of market milk. Existing law requires the secretary to take relevant economic factors into consideration in establishing the price to be paid for class 4a market milk and class 4b market milk. Existing law imposes various requirements related to the stabilization and marketing of market milk and makes a violation of these provisions a crime. This bill would authorize class 4a and class 4b market milk to be marketed under an alternative milk marketing agreement, as specified, if certain conditions are met, including if the secretary, before July 1, 2015, takes specified regulatory action that establishes class 4a and class 4b market milk prices that are indexed to the respective federal prices. The bill would require that an alternative milk marketing agreement, and any amendments to the agreement, be filed by the producer with the secretary. The bill would require a handler to provide the secretary on a monthly basis with prescribed information regarding alternative milk marketing agreements between the handler and a market milk producer and would exempt the information contained in alternative marketing agreements from the California Public Records Act. By adding to the requirements imposed on producers and handlers through the use of an alternative milk marketing agreement, this bill would expand the scope of a crime, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program. The bill would prescribe conditions under which a referendum would take place, where producers will vote on whether these provisions shall be repealed. Existing law, the Gonsalves Milk Pooling Act, provides for equalization pools and milk pooling to govern the production and distribution of fluid milk and fluid cream. The act authorizes the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to develop a pooling plan, with specified items required to be included in the pooling plan, under which producers of milk are assigned a pool quota that determines the amount of class 1 milk the producer can sell to handlers within the pooling system and the prices to be paid by handlers to producers. Existing law confers upon the secretary the ability to establish and administer the Milk Producers Security Trust Fund to protect producers against loss of payment for bulk milk through the collection of a security charge from handlers. This bill would require that milk purchased under an alternative milk market agreement be valued based on the announced minimum class price, as though the minimum class price had applied to the milk, for the collection of security charges and handler's average monthly milk purchases. The bill would limit the value established for the Milk Producers Security Fund under an alternative milk marketing agreement to the value established under the alternative milk marketing agreement or the value determined using the minimum class price under the stabilization and marketing plan, whichever is lower. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.