The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) has announced that Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) safety-net sign-up for 2021 coverage will begin October 12 and will run through December 11, 2020. DMC has already triggered payments for two months for producers who signed up for 2020 coverage.
“If we’ve learned anything in the past six months, it’s to expect the unexpected,” said FSA Administrator Richard Fordyce. “Nobody would have imagined the significant impact that current, unforeseen circumstances have had on an already fragile dairy market. It’s during unprecedented times like these that the importance of offering agricultural producers support through the delivery of Farm Bill safety-net programs such as DMC becomes indisputably apparent.”
The April 2020 income over feed cost margin was $6.03 per hundredweight (cwt.), triggering the second payment of 2020 for dairy producers who purchased the appropriate level of coverage under the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program. The April margin reflects a more than a $3 drop from the March $9.15 cwt. income over feed cost margin.
As of June 15, FSA had issued more than $100 million in much-needed program benefits to dairy producers who purchased DMC coverage for 2020.
Authorized by the 2018 Farm Bill, DMC is a 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 13,000 operations enrolled in the program for the 2020 calendar year.
For more information, visit farmers.gov DMC webpage or contact your local USDA service center.