Dairy farmers’ walks to the mailbox have not been fun this year. Through the first five months of 2018, average Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) “mailbox prices” – approximating the net price received by dairy farmers for milk after adding any premiums and deducting costs associated with hauling and marketing – was about $1.92 per hundredweight (cwt) less than the same period in 2017 (Table 1). For those with a longer memory, average mailbox prices were running $9 to $10 per cwt less than the record highs of 2014.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include information on sequestration and establishment of milk production histories for those dairy operations not enrolled in the Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy). Most U.S. dairy farmers suffering economic losses from the ongoing tariff wars will receive about 12 cents per hundredweight (cwt) on half of their highest annual milk production history in 2011-13, according to a USDA announcement on Aug. 27. Dairy organizations were disappointed in the level of direct aid, estimated at $127.4 million.

On Aug. 27, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced details of actions the USDA will take to assist farmers in response to trade damage from unjustified retaliation by foreign nations.

During a recent summer trip, I heard the most ridiculous statistic about cows. Unfortunately, it turned out to be true.

You’re busy – milking cows, managing employees, making hay.

Like many people who grew up on a dairy farm in decades past, I remember long, hot days of baling hay in small square bales. We hauled the bales to the barn in hay wagons, unloaded them into the hay elevator, which took them up into the barn, and stacked them tightly inside the hay barn.

I use a book by Patrick Lencioni, The Truth About Employee Engagement: A Fable About Addressing the Three Root Causes of Job Misery, as the basis for this article.

In a May 1 post on the Maryland Risk Management Education Blog, Kelly Nuckolls discussed safety and liability laws covering the movement of farm machinery. The article noted employers are liable for any accidents caused by their employees while those employees are acting within the scope of their job.

Many of the decisions you make on the farm – and in life – are influenced by what you already know and adjusted by whatever new information you can obtain.