Milk in the Middle Atlantic Marketing Area; Recommended Decision and Opportunity To File Written Exceptions on Proposed Amendments to Tentative Marketing Agreement and to Order

Résumé

This document recommends changes in some provisions of the Middle Atlantic milk marketing order based on industry proposals considered at a public hearing. The changes would reduce the standards for regulating distributing plants and cooperative reserve processing plants and increase the amount of producer milk that can be diverted to nonpool plants. Additional changes would authorize the market administrator to adjust pool plant qualification standards and producer milk diversion limits to reflect changes in marketing conditions. Also, the decision provides that a pool distributing plant that meets the pooling standards of more than one Federal order should continue to be regulated under this order for two months before regulation can shift to the other order. A decision on a proposal that would utilize only a route disposition standard to determine under which Federal order a plant should be regulated cannot be made on the basis of the hearing record.