News

Farm Bureau economist looks at dairy risk management utilization

An economist says more dairy farmers are utilizing the risk management programs for milk.

Danny Munch with American Farm Bureau Federation says since 2019, there has been a general increase in the amount of milk production insured and the number of policies sold to producers. “Since 2019, just under 4,000 policies were sold and now we’re up over 5,400 policies sold under Dairy Revenue Protection. When we jump down to LGM-Dairy, Livestock Gross Margin Dairy, it’s a much smaller amount of production that’s being insured under that program.”

Munch tells Brownfield there were over 16-hundred LGM Dairy policies last year, and there are around 13-hundred and 50 so far this year, with additions every month. “Dairy Margin Coverage tends to be kind of the no-brainer policy, and then LGM-Dairy and Dairy Revenue Protection are much more specific to dairy farmers’ operational characteristics so we hope they work with their local crop insurance providers and FSA office when purchasing or choosing those programs.”

Munch says around 70% of annual milk production is insured under the FSA-run Dairy Margin Coverage program and farmers can use multiple programs at the same time if the same milk isn’t being insured by two programs.