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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.
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.
With the 2018 Farm Bill and midterm elections in play, dairy organizations spent about $7.4 million on lobbying efforts in 2018 and another $3.5 million in political contributions in the 2017-18 election cycle, according to latest estimates from the Center for Responsive Politics.
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.
The Dairy Together Road Show continues its trek across the U.S., seeking support for dairy policy changes providing both short-term relief and long-term structural changes.
There have been lots of conversations and behind-the-scenes activity related to the new federal dairy safety net program – the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program – but dairy farmers will have to wait a little longer to see the benefits.
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