By   E. W. Lang

Milk producers participating in the current USDA Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program are among the minority - in agriculture or anywhere - who are looking at some kind of income stability for the next few months. The benefit looks like it will be more than $2 per cwt of covered production. More on that later.

Class IV Milk Futures were limit down - 75 cents - for four of the next nine months. Class III Futures were down 66 cents for May at $13.90 per cwt., and down 36 to 63 cents for the other eight trading months remaining in 2020.   Averages for March through December, 2020, are $15.08 on Class III and $13.33 on Class IV.  Both are down over a dollar from a week ago.

Block Cheese was down 15 cents today and 25 per lb. for the week. Barrels were down six today and nine since last Friday. Butter was -10 and -27 for the day and week, thus the limit down moves in Class IV Milk.

USDA Dairy Market News calls milk plentiful, however spot milk prices from -$4 to +$2 under and over Class were in the offering as some places needed milk to bottle for shoppers hoarding at retail. That moment has passed and fluid demand has settled.

Now, back to government subsidies. Someone called this morning and asked if sign up is over for the MFP-Milk payment and the monthly DMC subsidies. I think the deadline has passed, but one should check at the county ASCS Office to make sure.

That said, this is an election year, and a lot of USDA governance is by decree rather than legislation. I think it possible that sign-ups will be re-opened in the interest of humoring farm voters, voters from Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, in particular.

To elected and appointed officials, few things are more disturbing than persecuted family farmers, called to till the land, ordained by God to feed a hungry world, and serving humanity while a victim of, you know, everything. Farmers want nothing more than freedom and independence, but farmers also want government subsidies when that freedom and independence become a path to the poor farm.

Nearly all farmers almost always vote, and that makes a difference when the vote count is close and Electoral College votes are the path to the White House. 

Internationally renowned dairy cattle geneticist A. E. 'Gene' Freeman, PhD., has died. Dr. Freeman was among the most gifted faculty at Iowa State University. Nearly all of us, regardless of location, who have taken an animal breeding class were either a student, or are an academic descendant, of Dr. Freeman.