By  E. W. Lang

Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) commodity prices were announced by USDA this week.  Enrolled herds are eligible for $9 per cwt. and higher coverage.

On the theme of dairy subsidies, beneficiaries of the current DMC program, the previous Margin Protection Program (MPP) and the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program, that started nearly 20 years ago, will lose an advocate in D.C.   Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont has announced his retirement.  Sen. Leahy has been a supporter of government milk price supports and subsidies since 1975, serving many years on the Senate Ag Committee.

Sen. Leahy's retirement is rather an Ecclesiastical Ageing of Aquarius.  Vermont is a cultural outlier, as they have a socialist member of Congress in Bernie Sanders.   Vermont residents generally don't care for outsiders, but their state remains a haven for long haired folks that listen to vinyl records, smoke marijuana cigarettes, and can still remember how to do the peace sign.  They also have a lot of cows on pasture that once supplied Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, until Ben and Jerry went native and cashed out. 

Brandon, Vermont, where the Ayrshire Breeders' Ass'n was once located, had the last remaining, live, local telephone operator in the United States.  There had apparently been no need to update the local telephone technology after Korea, so reported Charles Kuralt, On the Road sometime in the late 90s.

Block cheese was steady this week at $1.86 per lb.  Barrels were up eight cents at $1.60 and Butter closed out at $2 per lb. for the third time this year. 

Class III Milk Future prices for all of 2022 currently average $18.98 per cwt.  That's a gain of ten cents since last week.  Class IV for 2022 is up two bits to average $19.50 per cwt.

Nitrogen fertilizer, in all its forms, is trading at record prices.  November saw anhydrous ammonia increase by 33%.  UAN32 was up 26%.  Urea was up 16%.  Phosphorous and Potash were up 6% and 5%.  Most crop inputs and energy needs can be booked several months out and this - over a lifetime - mitigates significant risk.  Most years the farmer comes out even or better, and from time to time will save significant money.

Forward contracting feed, feed inputs, energy or milk price acts to generally cut off the tops and bottoms of market fluctuations and only does so when consistantly practiced over years.   To sell or buy en masse  when there seems to be an aberration in price is a speculative move.  This can result in an occasional great profit or significant loss.  But again, it's speculative and not an action to mitigate risk and enhance the long-time viability of a commodity production enterprise, which are all farms.