Leaders of the National Milk Producers Federation are working to find ways to improve the Margin Protection Dairy Insurance program and submit it to Congress early next year. Recently a poll of 1,000 Wisconsin dairy farmers showed only 12 percent received payments from the safety net program. Federation’s Chris Galen says changes they’re looking at will be brought to lawmakers early in January.
He says there will be some challenges to making the changes to MPP including making sure there’s funding for it.
Galen says prior to the margin protection program being implemented, producers relied on the now defunct milk income loss program or M-I-L-C. He says that program was not a good safety net and wouldn’t have worked if it had been in effect today.
Galen says when the margin protection program was finalized two years ago, changes were made to the feed formula that understated the margins. He says that’s one major area that needs fixing.
