Since 1984, when President Ronald Reagan proclaimed that National Ice Cream Month be celebrated annually, every July has been a focus for greater attention to ice cream in the United States with the 3rd Sunday of July each year being National Ice Cream Day. About 9 percent of all the milk produced by U.S. dairy farmers is used to produce ice cream, contributing significantly to the economic well-being of the nation's dairy industry.

On February 5, 2015, USDA received a formal hearing request from three California milk cooperatives to establish a Federal milk marketing order for the State of California. After conducting an internal analysis of the proposal, USDA will decide whether a hearing will be held.

Minutes before the National Football League (NFL) teams of Super Bowl XLIX took the field, a middle school student from Orlando, Fla., had the honor of handing the game ball to an NFL official for the kickoff. But Bobby did much more than hand off that football. As this year's NFL Play 60 "Super Kid," the 12-year-old boy helped to inspire students across America to exercise daily and eat healthier foods. He accomplished this feat through his relentless work with the Fuel Up to Play 60 (FUTP60) program, an outreach and education initiative founded by the National Dairy Council and the NFL, in collaboration with USDA.

U.S. agricultural exports continue to be a bright spot for America's economy, worth a record $152.5 billion in fiscal year 2014. That's why USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and its sister agencies work so hard to keep these export markets open. So in 2011, when Morocco requested that USDA use a new dairy export certificate that we could not endorse, we launched into action. Our goal was to protect an export market worth $126 million annually while preserving our close relationship with a valued trading partner.

Attention dairy exporters, shippers, brokers, and traders! You can now apply for EU Derogations, Raw Milk and Storage export certificates for dairy products using USDA's Electronic Trade Document Exchange (eTDE) System.

AMS issued 37 percent more dairy export certificates this year, thanks to new programs developed with countries that import U.S. dairy products. In 2012, AMS issued dairy export certificates for goods going to more than 100 different countries, supporting the export of nearly 3.3 billion pounds of dairy products valued at more than $4.1 billion.