Section 2-13-111

Legislative declaration and findings.

(a) It is hereby declared and the Legislature hereby finds that:

(1) Dairy products are basic foods that are a valuable part of the human diet;

(2) The production of dairy products plays a significant role in the state's economy, the milk from which dairy products are manufactured is produced by milk producers and dairy products are consumed by thousands of people throughout the state and the United States;

(3) Dairy products must be readily available and marketed efficiently to ensure that the people of the state receive adequate nourishment;

(4) The maintenance and expansion of existing markets for dairy products are vital to the welfare of milk producers and those concerned with marketing, using and producing dairy products, as well as to the general economy of the state;

(5) Dairy products move in intrastate, interstate and foreign commerce;

(6) The Ninety-eighth Congress of the United States enacted the Dairy Production Stabilization Act of 1983 and established the National Dairy Board (7 U.S.C. § 4501 et seq.) authorizing the establishment of orderly procedures for financing promotional and educational programs for milk and dairy products through a mandatory $0.15 per hundredweight assessment on all milk produced in the United States for commercial use, and the carrying out of a coordinated program of promotion designed to strengthen the dairy industry's position in the marketplace, and authorizing such orderly procedures to permit a milk producer or a producer's cooperative to establish that the producer is participating in active, ongoing qualified state or regional dairy product promotion or nutrition education programs intended to increase consumption of milk and dairy products generally, to receive credit in determining the assessment due from such producer for contributions to such state programs in an amount not in excess of $0.10 per hundredweight of milk marketed; and

(7) The American Dairy Association of Alabama has been designated by the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States Department of Agriculture as a qualified promotional organization pursuant to the terms of the Dairy Production Stabilization Act of 1983 (7 U.S.C. § 4501 et seq.).

(b) It, therefore, is declared to be the policy of the Legislature that it is in the public interest to authorize the establishment, through the exercise of the powers provided in this article, of an orderly procedure for financing (through assessments on all milk produced in the state for commercial use) and carrying out a coordinated program of promotion designed to strengthen the dairy industry's position in the marketplace and to maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets and uses for fluid milk and dairy products produced in the state and the United States. All funds obtained by the state ADA as a result of the passage of this article shall be exclusively utilized to promote the dairy industry within the State of Alabama, and its contiguous states. Nothing in this article may be construed to provide for the control of production or otherwise limit the right of individual milk producers to produce milk.

(Acts 1990, No. 90-584, p. 1013, §2.)