Industry News

You’re busy – milking cows, managing employees and making 2019 cropping preparations. With that in mind, Progressive Dairyman looks at issues in the news impacting you and your dairy business.

Even though the 2018 Farm Bill provided dairy safety net program changes for the next five years, Congress will debate issues directly impacting dairy farmers. Immigration, trade and environmental policies are chief among those, and grassroots efforts are already underway to reform other dairy policies. The New Green Deal looms.

Digest Highlights

• Two Texas ‘ports’ critical to U.S. dairy trade with Mexico
• USDA offers $1.5 million in dairy innovation grants
• Limits raised on farm loans available through the USDA
• Georgia dairy producers approve state promotion program
• Breakfast carts reaching 200 schools
• States suing the USDA over school nutrition program changes
• Global Dairy Trade index up again
• More cow culling expected to pressure prices
• AFBF’s Newton reviews U.S. dairy supply management efforts
• Petition seeks end to California QIP

The Dairy Revenue Protection (Dairy-RP) program is hitting a milestone date in its six-month existence: On April 22, the USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) will announce average prices used to calculate potential indemnity payments for milk revenue covered during the first quarter of 2019, according to Robin Schmahl with AgDairy LLC.

Initially, smaller farms installed robotic milking systems because they wanted improved lifestyle and labor flexibility. It also allowed them to milk more cows without hiring labor. More recently, larger farms are considering robots because of the challenge of finding hired labor. We continue to get questions about actual labor savings, expected robot lifespan and repair costs. The true experts on these topics are the robot users.

Digest Highlights

• Stop dairying in early 2018? You may be eligible for partial MPP-Dairy payments
• ‘Retroactive’ MPP-Dairy payments arriving
• Fairlife to build production facility in Arizona
• California Cattle Council approved
• Proposal require over-order premium transparency on Pennsylvania milk checks
• Another temporary Northeast milk dumping request granted
• Large dairy manure biogas conversion project launched in Yakima County
• More than 150 workers have completed advanced dairy training
• USDA Census of Agriculture set for release on April 11