The Agricultural Marketing Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture will publish on January 17 a notice proposing to increase the user fees for voluntary federal plant inspections and dairy product grading services. The proposal would increase fees by 15 percent beginning this spring and by another five percent beginning eight months later. 

Based on the projected volumes of dairy products covered by services during this time period, AMS estimates that increasing the fees will result in an overall cost increase of less than $0.0004 per pound of graded product to the industry.

The last fee increase for dairy grading services became effective in 2006.

Visit the Federal Register Inspection Desk on or after January 17 to read the notice.  

For more information, contact Cary Frye, IDFA vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs, at cfrye@idfa.org.