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Peterson wants Farm Bill to protect smaller dairies

The Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee wants the next Farm Bill to make it impossible for small dairies to lose money.

Congressman Collin Peterson told attendees of an event hosted by the Land Stewardship Project fixing the Dairy Margin Protection Program is among his top priorities for the 2018 Farm Bill.

“The best thing that could happen is that you don’t collect, because that means you’ve been making money.  So if we set (MPP) up at $8 or $9 dollars above feed costs for the little guys, they literally cannot lose money.”

Based on that risk management structure, he says dairies with 180 or fewer cows could spend a relatively small amount of money and be completely covered.

“If you have a 180 cow, 4 million pound production, and say you have to pay $.07 cents per cwt to get $9 dollar protection.  Right now the feed cost is $8 bucks.  So that means you’re protecting $17 dollars.  That’s above the cost of production, probably.”

For dairies up to 500 head, Peterson says producers could insure up to 40 percent of production.

He adds that dairy farmers bigger than that typically purchase catastrophic coverage instead of MPP.

Brownfield interviewed Peterson at the Redwood Falls Community Center Tuesday.