Meeting changing consumer demands for nutritious snacking and convenience can boost dairy product consumption, according to panelists featured during the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin (PDPW) annual Dairy Food and Policy Summit, held Dec. 19-20, 2018 in Madison, Wisconsin.

With the government shutdown ended, U.S. dairy producers covered an additional 1.6 billion pounds of milk under Dairy Revenue Protection (Dairy-RP) insurance policies in the first week after policy sales resumed.

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A proposal to bring whole and flavored milk back to school lunchrooms has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

USDA staff began the task of collecting and reporting a mountain of data that went unreported during the partial government shutdown. One of the first reports updated was November 2018’s Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy) calculations, released about a month later than scheduled, on Jan. 31, 2019.

The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released a revised schedule of reports affected by the partial government shutdown. Due to a lapse in federal funding, NASS staff members were unable to collect data and compile the reports during the shutdown.

Editor's note: The original version of this article has been updated to include a newly revised schedule of USDA National Ag Statistics Service reports impacting MPP-Dairy margin calculations for November and December 2018. With the partial government shutdown ended – at least temporarily – the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) could soon be putting final numbers to the Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy).

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It didn’t take long for USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) to get the Dairy Revenue Protection (Dairy-RP) program back up and running. RMA began posting quarterly premiums and endorsement cost estimates on Jan. 28, the first full day after the partial government shutdown ended. With that information, firms offering Dairy-RP policies can resume selling quarterly endorsements.

A move to temporarily reopen the federal government while budget negotiations and debate over “the wall” continues has dairy and agricultural organizations hopeful the 2018 Farm Bill can start to be implemented.