News

Dairy Margin Coverage signup deadline approaching

The USDA says more than 17-thousand dairy farmers have signed up for the new Dairy Margin Coverage Program.  With only a month until the signup deadline, Undersecretary Bill Northey says he’s encouraged by the number of dairy producers who have signed up for this new program, but hopefully more will contact FSA to enroll.  Northey says signups are well ahead of the number of producers covered at this time last year under the previous safety net program, with more producers enrolling every day.

Sixty-three percent of dairies have enrolled in the program. Wisconsin has seen the most participants with more than 4,832 dairy operations, followed by Minnesota (1,865), New York (1,779), Pennsylvania (1,511) and Michigan (702).   Payments to farmers began July 11^th retroactive to January 1^st.

The Dairy Margin Coverage Program is already guaranteed to pay producers enrolled at the maximum $9.50/cwt. coverage level for every month of 2019 production through June, with another payment, predicted for July.

The signup deadline is September 20^th.