WASHINGTON — Dairy producers can now enroll for 2024 Dairy Margin Coverage, an important safety net program offered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture that provides producers with price support to help offset milk and feed price differences.
This year’s DMC signup began Feb. 28 and ends April 29. For those who sign up for 2024 DMC coverage, payments may begin as soon as March 4, for any payments that triggered in January.
USDA’s Farm Service Agency revised the regulations for DMC to allow eligible dairy operations to make a one-time adjustment to established production history. This adjustment will be accomplished by combining previously established supplemental production history with DMC production history for those dairy operations that participated in Supplemental Dairy Margin Coverage during a prior coverage year.
DMC is a voluntary risk management program that offers protection to dairy producers when the difference between the all-milk price and the average feed price (the margin) falls below a certain dollar amount selected by the producer. In 2023, Dairy Margin Coverage payments were triggered 11 months including two months, June and July, where the margin fell below the catastrophic level of $4 per hundredweight, a first for Dairy Margin Coverage or its predecessor Margin Protection Program. More than $1.2 billion in Dairy Margin Coverage payments were issued to producers in 2023.
