Industry News

You’re busy – milking cows, managing employees and attending farm meetings and conferences. With that in mind, Progressive Dairyman looks at issues in the news impacting you and your dairy business.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include MPP-Dairy margin calculations for December. Dairy producers insured at the $8 per hundredweight (cwt) margin level will see a payment of about 15 cents per cwt.

USDA staff members continue to catch up on reports that were delayed during the partial government shutdown, and Feb. 20 brought to light milk production, price and income margin data from December 2018.

We don’t know precisely when enrollment will be opened for the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program, but once it does, those dairy farmers insuring margins on the first 5 million pounds of milk at the top margin level should see an early payback.

The number of U.S. farms restructuring debt by filing Chapter 12 were down slightly last year, but the dairy economy likely figured prominently in states where bankruptcy filings were higher.

Digest Highlights

• Hay inventories lower in many dairy states
• Land purchase approval advances proposed Idaho research dairy
• Craigs Creamery launches branded products
• CAFO water quality protection project grants available in New York
• Calgren dairy digester project supplies SoCalGas pipeline
• Did you know: Who holds farm debt?
• Class IV price to be ‘higher of’ through 2019
• WUD opposes California bill that provides plant-based school lunch incentives
• Cottonseed harvest, acreage plans updated
• 2018 fluid sales lower
• Global Dairy Trade index maintains upward streak
• Upper Midwest milk hauling charges rose in 2018
• Study provides winning growth formula for dairy companies

Regular readers of the Progressive Dairyman Extra enewsletter know we provide regular updates on Dairy Revenue Protection (Dairy-RP) program sales activity. This week, we take an additional look at the USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) data: the percentage of milk by coverage level; and preview the timeline as the first quarter of 2019 comes to a close.