Tag: coronavirus

Washington May Be Divided, But Bipartisanship Aids Dairy Gains

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

A bitter election season is winding down, and the shape of the Biden Administration and Congress is becoming clear. Just as clear is another political reality: Washington next year will be, if anything, more closely divided than it was before.

That places bipartisanship at a premium, as any lasting solutions to policy challenges will require cooperation from both sides of the aisle. Fortunately, dairy is well-situated to play an important role in the agreements that will be necessary to get anything done in Washington, as evidenced by the many bipartisan policy gains that bore fruit for dairy in 2020.

Consider this. At the beginning of this year, dairy prices were projected at levels sufficient to keep income-over-feed-costs margins high enough to avoid triggering payments under the Dairy Margin Coverage Program. Instead, as the coronavirus crisis seized the nation beginning in March, prices plunged, leading to emergency-milk dumping and triggering about $200 million in payments to producers who enrolled in DMC.

That assistance came about because of the 2018 farm bill, passed with the support of both parties and including a revamp of dairy risk management tools that literally paid off at an incredibly crucial time. Signup for DMC coverage in 2021 is open until Dec. 11, and with payouts projected for the first eight months of the year, it’s important that farmers take advantage of this important program. Doing so directly delivers the benefits of effective bipartisan policymaking to the farm.

On top of DMC assistance, bipartisan cooperation yielded several benefits to dairy this year that have proven crucial to farmers’ economic health. The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (the latest round of which also has a Dec. 11 signup deadline) bolstered many farmers’ cash flows, with two rounds of payments providing disaster assistance averaging as high as $2.47 per cwt for all milk marketed in 2020 and softening the blows of pandemic disruptions for many farm families. In tandem with CFAP, the Farmers to Families Food Box program has fed those in need and kept processors in business, benefiting communities, preserving jobs and ensuring that farmers have supply chains to serve.

NMPF also helped ensure that programs implemented for small businesses nationwide worked for dairy. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDLs), two coronavirus-related rescue measures implemented by the Small Business Administration (SBA), initially evolved from a hope to a frustration for dairy producers, who didn’t have equitable access to the programs. Working with allies, members of Congress from both parties, and administration officials, NMPF rectified many of the hurdles to the programs, increasing dairy’s access to the small business support as the SBA programs continued.

This more than $5 billion infusion of federal aid, and ongoing improvements in their administration, has been a difference-maker for dairies across the nation. Albeit, not all our farmers received the same level of support due to issues including payment limitations, organizational structures or market volatility. Nevertheless, in a telling statistic, the pace of dairy farm consolidation appears to be slowing this year – this is counterintuitive given the disruptions farms have faced, but a tribute to the effective efforts made to help farmers weather these storms.

All of it has been the product of fruitful collaboration, from within the dairy community as we at the National Milk Producers Federation and cooperatives and dairy associations across the country together pursued policy goals, to Capitol Hill, where champions in both parties spoke out on the need for dairy initiatives, and in the administration, which implemented programs funded by a Democratic House of Representatives and a Republican Senate for the betterment of dairy.

We’ve also fostered bipartisan collaboration on trade, with lawmakers from both parties calling for action against protectionist EU practices that inhibit dairy-export growth and defending the use of common cheese names. And we’ve worked for bipartisan agreement on immigration – a promising package passed in the House nearly one year ago stalled in the Senate as coronavirus demanded attention, but renewed efforts are expected in the next Congress.

In the near term, we remain hopeful that Congress may pass another COVID-19 relief package this month, given the acute strains our health-care systems and economy are facing now and for at least the next several months. Times of crisis demand unity – and despite the tendency toward reflective naysaying about Washington, consensus is possible to achieve, as the gains of the past year have shown. NMPF is advocating for additional relief for dairy producers that reflects the losses they have suffered, no matter the size of an operation. We are also urging Congress to approve a dairy donation program that can maximize dairy consumption among food-insecure populations.

In 2021 NMPF will continue its work as an advocate for dairy producers and their cooperatives in policy decisions, with our hallmark bipartisanship giving us a seat at the table wherever, whenever, and with whomever is making important decisions affecting farmer livelihoods.

NMPF Offers Webinar on 2021 Dairy Economy as DMC Deadline Approaches

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

With deadlines for the Dairy Margin Coverage program and Coronavirus Food Assistance Program signups approaching on Dec. 11, the National Milk Producers Federation is offering dairy farmers, cooperative members and state dairy associations a free webinar Dec. 2 to help them develop effective risk management plans that can protect them in what’s predicted to be a volatile year in 2021.

NMPF Chief Economist Peter Vitaliano, creator of the monthly Dairy Market Report released earlier today, will be discussing the dairy price outlook for next year, and the value of risk management tools including Dairy Margin Coverage, in a webinar moderated by Chris Galen, NMPF’s Senior Vice President for Member Services, at 1:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Dec. 2. Participants will be able to ask questions about the year ahead and learn more about how farmers can manage their risk through expected turbulence.

The webinar will examine the milk and feed price forecast, forecast margins, and analyze how the Dairy Margin Coverage program will offer farmers protection against price volatility. To register, click here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_yr4QZ8HhSc-zdvujrg_zBA

Current USDA calculations predict that the DMC, adopted with NMPF’s leadership in the 2018 farm bill, will offer payments averaging $1.05 per cwt in the first eight months of next year for those at the maximum $9.50 coverage level. That vastly outstrips program premiums, making coverage for a farm’s first 5 million pounds of milk production a no-brainer, Vitaliano said. The DMC also offers affordable protection to all producers against price catastrophes and can be used in tandem with other risk management tools, such as the Dairy-Revenue Protection and the Livestock Gross Margin programs.

To determine the appropriate level of DMC coverage for a specific dairy operation, producers can use the recently updated online dairy decision tool offered through the USDA’s DMC informational page. Dairy producers can also visit NMPF’s page on risk management to learn more about DMC, CFAP and other tools to promote financial security for dairy operations.

Dairy Defined Podcast: How NMPF Pulled Off a Virtual Cheese Contest

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted lives and transformed everything from schooling and shopping habits to … cheese contests. It’s not something most people think about, but in a time of social distancing and curtailed travel, how exactly does one gather, sample, compare and celebrate world-class cheeses, virtually?

This was the question National Milk Producers Federation coordinators Jamie Jonker and Miquela Hanselman set out to answer – and their solutions were cheese-tastic, to say the least. Judging conducted from multiple locations, donated storage spaces and smaller cheese blocks played their role – as did continual ingenuity from a team determined not to let a pandemic upend a cherished dairy tradition.

NMPF announced the winners of its first-ever virtual cheese contest – one believed to be the first nationwide U.S. cheese contest of the virtual era – last week. This week’s Dairy Defined Podcast tells the tale of the Cheese Contest That Could, featuring Jonker, Hanselman, and Head Cheese Judge Allison Reynolds of the USDA, facilitated by NMPF Communications Manager Theresa-Sweeney Murphy.

“I think it’s important that while we are in strange and unique times because of the pandemic, that some things still continue to happen as normal course of order,” said Jonker, NMPF’s staff scientist and a 16-year veteran of the competition. “The most rewarding part is that, unless we told people about how we did it, most people wouldn’t understand that it was any different from other years. And I think that’s a testament to the great team that we’ve got at National Milk, our cheese judges, and our co-ops that enter the cheese every year for really making it seem like nothing was different, even though everything was different.”

To listen to the full discussion, click here. You can also find this and other NMPF podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,  SoundCloud and Google Play. Broadcast outlets may use the MP3 file. Please attribute information to NMPF.

 

Jim Mulhern Remarks at NMPF/NDB/UDIA Joint Annual Meeting

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of remarks made Oct. 27.

Good afternoon, and good morning to all of you joining us in the West. Let me add my thanks to you for being here for our first-ever — and I hope last ever — virtual annual meeting. I do wish we could be together in person and, like all of you, I’m looking forward to getting to the other side of this dreadful pandemic. But right now, we’re all trying hard to make the best of a bad situation.

So, I want to jump right into things here with a few brief remarks.  Then we’ve got another great presentation for you: Our annual NMPF Town Hall issues update with a panel featuring some of our key experts working on your behalf on a wide range of dairy policy issues, economics and the FARM Program.

Because of our more limited time format for this year’s meeting we’ve condensed our traditional Town Hall panel for this live presentation. But we still want you to provide you with more in-depth discussions on all the issue areas we are involved in. So, we’ve taped a series of presentations that you can find online on our website, nmpf.org. I encourage you to watch them at your convenience to learn more about the wide range of important work NMPF has done this year.

And, man, what a year. For those who were with us last year in New Orleans, I’m sure none of you remember what I talked about. But my message was the importance of resilience — how it is one of the key strengths that all of you as dairy farmers consistently exhibit and how it has helped us get through nearly a half-decade of difficult times.

Well, little did I know back then just how important resilience was going to be for all of us. This year has posed challenges beyond what any of us could have imagined just one year ago…. challenges on our farms, in our families, and to our futures.

And yet, the obstacles we’ve faced this year will only make us stronger as we deal with the hardships that, yes, still lie ahead.

Think back to March, when the COVID-19 crisis began to profoundly change all our lives. The challenges were immediate… and clear. The solutions, less so. At National Milk, as we looked at all of this, there were a few things we knew. We knew that the nation’s dairy farmers and our member cooperatives are essential for the nourishment of those we serve. We knew that the dairy community can be formidable when it pursues its goals with unity and commitment. And we knew that our organization has demonstrated a track record of effectiveness, even in the face of daunting tasks.

That all gave us confidence. And just like the thousands of dairy farmers we serve, we went to work to tackle the crisis, consulting closely with our leaders, seeking ways to stem the damage and improve lives.

We needed to be a resource to not only our dues-paying members, but to all dairy farmers who were dealing with immediate crises in their operations and supply chains. And even in those darkest times, there were bright spots. Aided greatly by the efforts of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, international trade saw strong demand. Here at home, retail milk flew off store shelves, as consumers showed their support for the nutritious beverages they relied on most.

But the root of dairy’s resilience was centered, as always, on the farm, and led by many of you…. our farmer-leaders. Faced with an unprecedented rupture in the balance of supply and demand, many farmers used every tool in their arsenal to throttle back production — from changing feed rations and milking schedules to putting the brakes on herd expansion. Those efforts helped stave off what would have been a complete price collapse and they set the stage for a rebound.

Farmers and our co-ops took important steps to address the issues they could control. Meanwhile, we advocated for our industry before Congress and  USDA, and the White House. As a highly perishable, 24/7/365 days a year commodity, dairy never stops, and that made the need for immediate, robust support for dairy simply essential. We engaged in marathon discussions, and strategized across the industry and throughout the government. Together, we succeeded in making sure dairy received important levels of government disaster assistance, both in the first round of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program payments and in the more recent CFAP 2.

To be sure, these government programs are far from perfect – not all farms were treated equally, and we continue to work with Congress and USDA to remedy flaws in future disaster assistance. But this assistance did much to cushion the immediate blows to balance sheets from COVID-19. And it continues to help stabilize operations nationwide.

Beyond direct federal disaster assistance, we also knew that, while farm payments helped, they didn’t address the root of COVID-19’s impact on dairy – the devastating blow to dairy demand from lost foodservice sales, a huge part of our market.

We emphasized to policy makers how government dairy purchases can create a positive economic cycle, with programs like the popular Food Boxes providing  products to families hit hard by the pandemic. Those government purchases create demand that strengthens prices, keeps processors operating and enables dairy farmers to get support where they really want it — through improved milk checks.

We’ve experienced a roller-coaster ride in prices for sure – but the federal assistance kept the worst-case scenarios from occurring. And it shows yet again how effective advocacy can prompt a forceful and helpful government response.

Just as important as protecting our businesses, of course, is protecting our families, and our workers, and our communities, especially during a pandemic. Dairy has always been a leader in stewardship to our land, our animals and our community – and this year has been no exception. Through the National Dairy FARM program, we quickly made available industry best practices and guidance to help address the crisis, and through our outreach and our coronavirus toolbox on our website, we gave our members – and all dairy farmers – the information they needed to adjust to dairy farming in this new reality.

So, what will all this mean in the days ahead? Well, make no mistake: this crisis is far from over. Without a vaccine, with an uncertain political future, with an economy that still hasn’t found a “new normal,” there’s no happy ending I can share with you today, because we still have a long way to go. But I’d like to conclude with a few observations that offer hope and optimism for the journey ahead:

  •  First, it is the strength of Farmer-owned dairy cooperatives that have led the industry through this crisis, and they will carry it through to the end. From our economic leadership, to our commitment to customers and consumers, to making our voices heard in Washington, co-ops remain the heart and soul of this industry. And this industry benefits best when our cooperatives speak with unified voices, on everything from marketing orders to on-farm best practices.
  • Despite the few naysayers out there who love to sow discord in difficult times, it is our unity as an industry that enables us to achieve our goals and helps us prevail. We will continue to work together as this crisis evolves, and our track record of success this year helps set the stage for future success.
  • Finally, the lessons we’ve learned here are applicable elsewhere. We have learned that the Dairy Margin Coverage program, which we fought for in the 2018 farm bill, provides important risk management and affordable catastrophic coverage when farmers need it most.  And we’ve learned again that the positive stewardship story so crucial this year, focusing on farmers and their high level of  care for their animals and the land, this provides the backbone needed for other exciting and challenging endeavors, such as our industrywide Net Zero Initiative and our Stewardship Commitment goals.

So, know that our challenges and risks are far from over.

But we’ve already proven a lot – to ourselves, and to the nation. We will get through this, and we’re stronger now than before. Throughout the world, everyone is hoping tomorrow will be brighter. We KNOW it will be, because of the work we’ve done together that has brought us here today.

Thanks again for this opportunity to speak to you.

NMPF Chair Mooney Says Dairy is Meeting “Biggest Challenges of Our Lifetimes”

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The extreme disruptions and financial upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have created real struggles for dairy producers – and the industry has responded by rising to an unprecedented occasion, said Randy Mooney, chairman of the National Milk Producers Federation, to delegates Monday at NMPF’s first-ever virtual annual meeting.

“We haven’t landed safely yet, but there’s plenty of reason to believe that we as an organization and an industry have risen to the biggest challenges of our lifetimes, and that we’ll be able to look back with pride on our response to the pandemic,” Mooney said in his remarks, this week’s Dairy Defined podcast. The podcast can also be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,  SoundCloud and Google Play.

NMPF’s annual meeting continues today and is free of charge to registrants. More information about the meeting — the largest dairy-farmer policy gathering in the U.S. — is here, and registration information is here.

Broadcast outlets may use the MP3 file. Please attribute information to NMPF.

USDA’s Dairy Margin Coverage Program Now Open for 2021 Enrollment

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

With the ongoing COVID-19 crisis teaching hard lessons on risk management throughout agriculture, and with dairy margins expected to be volatile over the next year, the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) urges farmers to sign up for maximum coverage in 2021 under the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program.

DMC is designed to ensure that dairy farmers can protect themselves against financial catastrophe. Despite forecasts in late 2019 predicting that DMC was unlikely to generate payments in 2020, margins fell to their lowest levels in more than a decade in the first half of this year, triggering payments that kept many dairies afloat. The current USDA forecast indicates margins will drop below $9.50/cwt. in the first half of 2021. DMC coverage offers certainty in times of need, allowing for better financial planning and faster payment when necessary.

Enrollment for the 2021 DMC program year starts today and runs through Dec. 11. See below and visit USDA’s Farm Service Agency’s DMC page for more information.

 

ELIGIBILITY

All U.S. dairy operations are eligible for DMC. An operation can be run either by a single producer or multiple producers who commercially produce and market milk. Each producer on an operation must share the risk of producing milk and make contributions (including land, labor, management, equipment, or capital) to the dairy’s operation at least equal to the individual or entity’s share of the operation’s proceeds.

An eligible dairy operation must:

  • Have a production history determined by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA).
  • Be registered to participate during a signup announced by FSA.
  • Pay a $100 administrative fee annually for each year of participation, except if the dairy operation qualifies for a waiver for limited resource, beginning, socially disadvantaged, or veteran farmers and ranchers.

A dairy operated by more than one producer still will be registered as a single operation. Producers who operate two or more dairies need to register each operation separately to cover that operation.

Eligible DMC participants are also eligible to participate in the Livestock Gross Margin for Dairy Producers Program and the Dairy Revenue Protection Program. Both are administered by the USDA Risk Management Agency.

 

COVERAGE LEVELS

Producers have multiple options for coverage each year. Basic catastrophic coverage of $4/cwt. is free, except for the $100 annual administrative fee. Farms can insure their first 5 million pounds of milk production history, designated as Tier I, in 50-cent increments from $4/cwt. up to $9.50/cwt.  Annual production above 5 million pounds falls into Tier II. Coverage options in Tier II range from $4/cwt. to $8/cwt. Producers must also select a coverage percentage of the dairy operation’s production history ranging from 5 percent to 95 percent, in 5-percent increments.

The following table provides the premium schedule.

 

HOW TO APPLY

FSA opens enrollment for DMC on Oct. 13 for calendar year 2021. The deadline to enroll for 2021 coverage is Dec. 11.

All dairy farmers who want 2021 coverage must visit their local USDA Service Center office to pay the annual administrative fee, which is $100 for all coverage levels. Producers must visit their local office even if they locked in coverage in 2019 for five years to take advantage of the 25% premium discount offered the first year of the program.

 

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT

USDA offers a variety of programs that have helped dairy farmers in addition to DMC, including insurance, disaster assistance, and conservation programs. Most recently, the first round of aid under the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program provided $1.75 billion in direct relief to dairy producers who faced price declines and additional marketing costs due to COVID-19 in early 2020. Signup is now underway for a second round of CFAP payments, offering further assistance for dairy producers and many other eligible producers. CFAP 2 applications are being accepted by FSA offices now through Dec. 11.

 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

For more information, visit the farmers.gov DMC webpage, or contact your local USDA Service Center. To locate your local FSA office, visit farmers.gov/service-center-locator.