{"id":98573,"date":"2018-12-28T05:32:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T10:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=98573"},"modified":"2018-12-27T11:46:14","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T16:46:14","slug":"dairy-producers-receive-a-boost-from-usda%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=98573","title":{"rendered":"Dairy producers receive a boost from USDA\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jody Kenworthy, Farm Service Agency<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Frank Burkett is a fifth-generation dairy farmer, who moved home after graduating from Ohio State University to work on the family farm. Photo courtesy of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In farm country outside Buffalo, you will find Frank Valent\nworking with his 80 or so Holstein and Jersey cows to put milk on America\u2019s\ntable. Travel about 200 miles southeast to Ohio, Frank Burkett III operates a\nlarger dairy operation with around 700 Holsteins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These dairymen may manage different size farms, but they\nhave more in common than both being named Frank. Like dairy farmers across the\ncountry, both are facing low milk prices, increasing operational costs and\nwaning consumer demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Jim Reid is one of more than 21,400 producers who signed up for the Margin Protection Program for Dairy in 2018. Photo courtesy of the United Dairy Industry of Michigan. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One resource they both take advantage of is Margin Protection Program for Dairy<\/a>, a voluntary risk-management program for dairy producers available through USDA\u2019s Farm Service Agency<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This program offers protection to dairy producers when the difference between the national all-milk price and the national average feed cost falls below a certain dollar amount selected by the producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other side of Lake Erie in Michigan, another\ndairyman, Jim Reid, operates a herd of around 230 Holsteins on his family farm\nthat was established 150 years ago. Jim also participates in the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of the three would want to be doing something else.\nThey love what they do. As Frank Valent says, \u201cdairy farming is a labor of\nlove.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the program<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These three farmers are not new to farming, as they grew up\non or around their families\u2019 farms. But whether new or old, dairy operations are\nfacing and will continue to face the many challenges of operating in the\never-changing dairy industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All three producers have participated in the program since\nit was created by the 2014 Farm Bill, but they received little to no payment\nfrom 2014 to 2017, even during adverse times. Only when the program was updated\nthis past year by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 did they start to receive\nsignificant support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These changes included changing the schedule of payments to\nmonthly instead of bi-monthly, permitting dairy operations that had not\npreviously participated to enroll in the program, covering 5 million pounds of\nproduction (instead of 4 million) on the Tier 1 premium schedule, significantly\nreducing premiums per hundredweight under the Tier I premium schedule and\nexempting limited resource, beginning, veteran, and disadvantaged dairy\noperators from paying the annual administrative fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the program was updated, Jim and both Franks have\nchosen a premium coverage level, and all three have received payments most\nmonths since the program changed. Almost all producers who enrolled in\n2018, around 21,000 operations, chose premium coverage levels of $7, $7.50 or\n$8. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, payments have been triggered for February through\nAugust. For these seven months, more than $253 million in payments have been\nmade to dairy operators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe are pleased to announce that roughly half of our\nnation\u2019s dairy producers enrolled for coverage under this reworked program,\nproviding additional capital to keep some of these folks afloat,\u201d said\nAgriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in a Dec.\n17 news release<\/a>. \u201cWe understand that this is not a total fix nor long-term\nsolution for dairy producers, but we are glad that the Farm Service Agency was\nable to spring into action to get these critical payments out the door just a\nfew months after the legislative changes were enacted. USDA is looking forward\nto prioritizing the implementation of the Dairy Margin Coverage Program, the\nnew longer-term, more comprehensive dairy safety net program, following the\npassage of the 2018 Farm Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other USDA Assistance<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While signup for the Margin Protection Program for Dairy is\nnow closed, USDA offers a variety of programs to help dairy producers stay in\nbusiness, manage risk, and conserve natural resources. To learn more, visit\nyour local USDA service center. To find your local office, visit www.farmers.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jody Kenworthy, Farm Service Agency In farm country outside Buffalo, you will find Frank Valent working with his 80 or so Holstein and Jersey cows to put milk on America\u2019s table. Travel about 200 miles southeast to Ohio, Frank Burkett III operates a larger dairy operation with around 700 Holsteins. These dairymen may manage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23679,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agfarming","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-pDT","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Photo-1_Dairy-Producers-Receive-a-Boost-from-USDA.jpg?fit=1000%2C666&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/98574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}