By Angie Walter
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has extended the deadline?for producers to enroll in Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) and Supplemental Dairy Margin Coverage (SDMC) for program year 2023 to Jan. 31, 2023.
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.
Early projections indicate DMC payments are likely to trigger for the first eight months in 2023. Markets fluctuate, sometimes at a moment’s notice and sometimes with no warning at all, so now’s the time to ensure your operation is covered. Please don’t let this second chance slide.
Nearly 18,000 operations that enrolled in DMC for 2022 have received margin payments for August and September for a total of $76.3 million. At $0.15 per hundredweight for $9.50 coverage, risk coverage through DMC is a relatively inexpensive investment.
DMC offers different levels of coverage, even an option that is free to producers, aside from a $100 administrative fee. Limited resource, beginning, socially disadvantaged, and military veteran farmers and ranchers are exempt from paying the administrative fee, if requested. To determine the appropriate level of DMC coverage for a specific dairy operation, producers can use the?online dairy decision tool.
Last year, USDA introduced Supplemental DMC, which provided $42.8 million in payments to better help small- and mid-sized dairy operations that had increased production over the years but were not able to enroll the additional production.
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