Checkoff at Work

The Dairy Alliance and national checkoff promote the consumption of milk and other dairy foods to consumers. Checkoff dollars are at work to develop a positive image for dairy on behalf of dairy farmers.

For 2024, The Dairy Alliance proved that your dairy checkoff organization will make Every Drop Count when strategic priorities are aligned. The 2024 Annual Report demonstrates how The Dairy Alliance is responsibly investing your checkoff contribution into efficient, impactful programs to grow milk volume in targeted programs through our four priorities: Transform Dairy, Build Reputation, Drive Growth, and Amplify Checkoff at Work. We are excited to share the results of our 2024 programming.

2024 Annual Report

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Beyond being downright delicious, dairy is nourishing, affordable, and versatile – a crowd-pleaser!

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Your Dairy Checkoff Check-In

Quarter 3 2025 Check-in

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Quarter 4 2024 Check-in

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Quarter 4 2025 Check-in

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Quarter 2 2025 Check-in

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State Stories

Cooperative Highlights

Your Dairy Checkoff
Cooperative Milk Members Partnering
Dairy Farmers of America
Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers
Southeast Milk Inc.

Making Every Drop Count

A whole lot goes into every single drop of milk.​

Making Every Drop Count is a federation-wide effort to help raise awareness of the dairy checkoff, its programs and results with farmers who contribute to the checkoff. Making Every Drop Count aims to help the nation’s nearly 30,000 dairy farm families contributing to the checkoff program recognize and understand how checkoff works on farmers’ behalf locally, nationally and internationally.

Every drop of milk represents a dairy farm.

The national dairy checkoff began in 1983. And, just as dairy farming and the industry have evolved and grown over the past 40 years, so has the checkoff. Checkoff focuses on helping sales and demand grow and building trust in dairy through partnerships. Today’s dairy industry, consumer market and checkoff programs are complex, making it difficult for these efforts to be visible and identifiable to farmers.

We’re here to make sure dairy will always matter.

With research and innovation and marketing programs, we give support and tools to farmers to make dairy relevant in today’s environment.

ORDER FARM SIGN

The Dairy Alliance has a wide variety of posters, handouts, banners and other materials dairy farmers can use to promote the goodness of dairy. Please order at least 10 days in advance. Click below to order online or contact your Ag Affairs Manager.

ORDER FARM TOUR MATERIALS
Sustainability on the Dairy Farm
Delicious Dairy Recipes
The Southeast Dairy Farming Families

National Dairy Checkoff

Dairy checkoff works on behalf of U.S. dairy producers to drive increased sales of and demand for U.S. dairy products and ingredients through many of the programs listed below. To learn more about the national checkoff program, visit www.usdairy.com.

  • Dairy producers created the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy in 2008 to address challenges and opportunities that require industry-wide action. Thirty-four key industry leaders comprise six committees to address issues and opportunities that positively affect the entire industry.

  • Using voluntary, collective environmental stewardship goals, the U.S. dairy industry collectively commits to becoming carbon neutral or better, optimizing water use while minimizing recycling, and improving water quality by optimizing use of manure and nutrients by 2050. The Net Zero Initiative (NZI) promotes trust in dairy amongst consumers, increases accessibility to new technologies and solutions, and helps farmers find potential new revenue opportunities, including carbon and water credit trading, and manure-based products. Read more about the 2050 goals and the NZI.

  • Dairy checkoff is committed to helping protect and promote the image of dairy products, producers, and the industry by offering training and tools to help dairy farmers tell their stories to the public. Through the “Community Outreach” program, we are connecting consumers to dairy farmers to tell the dairy farming story through speaking events, social media, and one-on-one conversations. Contact your farmer relations manager for more details on the program.

Learn the Latest on Dairy Exports and Ingredients

The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), funded in part by the dairy checkoff, works on behalf of producers and more than 100 member organizations to enhance global competitiveness and exports of U.S. dairy products by securing access and assisting suppliers to meet market needs that facilitate sales. The volume of U.S. milk solid exports has been rising steadily over the past several years. Currently, 13.3 percent of U.S. milk production is exported to Mexico, Southeast Asia, Canada, and other destinations.

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More Resources

Your Dairy Checkoff Podcast
How the Dairy Checkoff Works
National Checkoff Updates
Dairy Farmer Resources

Articles

Awkward Moments Require a Dairy Reset
Making Cold Milk Cool: Reaching Youth Through Relevant Programming
Delivering Dairy To Gen Z’s World