68% of U.S. Dairy Farms have enrolled in the 2021 Dairy Margin Coverage Program - Cowsmo

68% of U.S. Dairy Farms have enrolled in the 2021 Dairy Margin Coverage Program

68% of the country’s dairy farms signed up for Dairy Margin Coverage for 2021 before the Dec. 11 deadline, compared to just over 50% enrollment in 2020.

Well over half the dairy farms in the U.S. enrolled in the Dairy Margin Coverage program for 2021.

DMC is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s voluntary risk management program that offers protection to dairy producers when the difference between the all-milk price and the average feed price (the margin) falls below a certain dollar amount selected by the producer. More than 23,000 operations enrolled in DMC in 2019, and more than 13,000 in 2020, according to USDA data.

“This year has been a market roller coaster for the dairy industry, and the Dairy Margin Coverage program is a valuable tool dairy producers can use to manage risk,” said Bill Northey, USDA’s under secretary for farm production and conservation.

Despite USDA officials raising some concerns in November that not enough dairy producers were enrolled, 68% of the country’s dairy farms signed up for DMC coverage for 2021 before the Dec. 11 deadline. That’s compared to just over 50% enrollment in 2020.

“That is a good number,” Marin Bozic said.

Bozic, who conducts research at the University of Minnesota on dairy risk management and dairy policy and teaches courses on agribusiness finance and risk management is an expert on the Dairy Margin Coverage program. He said the DMC program has now paid out generously in 2019 and 2020.

“We have a little bit of a real history to rely on, not just the simulations.” he said. “And I think producers are reacting to that.”

Bozic and Mark Stephenson at University of Wisconsin-Madison partnered with the USDA to upgrade the tool in recent months, to help producers choose a level of coverage that fits their unique risk management needs. With the tool, producers can see how different coverage levels correspond to milk price floors given the projected feed costs.

He said in previous years they noticed that producers used the tool to try to get a sense of whether the program would pay out more than they pay in for premiums.

“The problem with that approach is that nobody sees a black swan, which by definition is something that is unexpected and escaping all forecasts,” Bozic said.

He said they worked with state ag departments and FSA offices to reimagine the tool to include historical analysis that shows what DMC payments might have been had the program existed over the last two decades.

 

Source: AgWeek

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