Nearly three-quarters of all dairy producers are signed up for the Dairy Margin Coverage Program. Enrollment this year is up nearly 5,000 to about 18,500 producers. That is compared to only a little more than 13,500 producers last year, or about half of all the operations.
Payments last year averaged almost $14,800 dollars per dairy. A professor with the University of Minnesota says that the program offers a lot of benefits.
According to Marin Bozic, “Had this program been in existence over the last 10 years, for 15 cents premium contributed to the program, the average payout per hundredweight would have been $1.38. For every $1 dollar paid into premium over the last 10 years, producers would have collected $9 dollars in gross indemnities, in gross payments before premiums.
The Farm Service Agency Program offers protection to dairy farmers when the difference between milk and feed prices fall below a certain dollar amount.
