Industry News

Editor’s note: With lots of news affecting dairy farmers this week, Progressive Dairyman provides a second installment of Weekly Digest.

• 2018 MPP-Dairy premium balance deadline extended
• Livestock haulers could receive another ELD extension
• Senate rejects effort to block FDA food label standard enforcement
• July Class III, IV prices fall
• California 4a, 4b prices decline

Adverse milk income margins continue to apply downward pressure on prices paid for dairy replacement cows.

June 2018’s Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy) margin calculations ended a four-month string below $7 per hundredweight (cwt), but dairy producers who purchased coverage at the $7.50 and $8 per cwt margin levels will receive indemnity payments for a fifth consecutive month.

Digest Highlights

• 2018 Farm Bill: See you in September
• NMPF tells FDA to enforce dairy standards of identity
• House recesses with no vote on AG & Legal Workforce Act
• Pennsylvania producer survey reveals expansion is a low priority
• Dairy farm, wholesale and retail price forecast
• DFA invests in MOPRO Greek yogurt
• Land O'Lakes Inc. names Ford president and CEO
• PMMB to consider co-op milk procurement costs
• MMPA donating 150 gallons of milk per day in 2018

The list of the 2018 Rabobank “Global Dairy Top 20” companies didn’t change much from a year ago, despite some major mergers and acquisitions. With about $24 billion in 2017 sales, Nestlé remained the largest dairy company in the world.

For larger dairy producers who didn’t enroll in the Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy), the Livestock Gross Margin-Dairy (LGM-Dairy) program may be worth looking into as a risk management option for the latter half of 2018, according to Alan Zepp, risk management program manager at Pennsylvania's Center for Dairy Excellence (CDE).