The American Farm Bureau Federation, American Farm Bureau Insurance Services, and other collaborators have developed a federal crop insurance product to help dairy farmers. AFBF Chief Economist John Newton says the product provides insurance for the difference between the revenue guarantee and actual milk revenue if prices or revenues decline, without capping production.
“We recognized that there are dairy farms of all sizes. We wanted to make a program that would work for small, medium and large dairies. So there absolutely is no cap on how much milk you can insure under the Dairy Revenue Protection Program.”
Producers can use the new program along with the Margin Protection Program. Newton says the program is farmer friendly.
“The farmer who decides to buy for production they expect to produce has to meet those production thresholds that we set forth in the policy. But, we don’t need to see that you have plans to move dirt, or that you’ve bought cows in order to ensure that milk that you expect to come online.”
Newton says policies will be available in October.
“Crop insurance agents will be able to start unveiling premiums to farmers in a very short period of time. This is going to be on the market for sale October 9th. We’ve got all of our premium calculators set up so that you could see what premiums would be today if you were to go out and buy a policy.”
Source: American Farm Bureau Federation