By Steve Byrns
The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service will conduct an educational program on the 2014 farm bill’s dairy provisions from 9-11:30 a.m. Sept 12 in the Bailey County Electric Cooperative conference room in Muleshoe.
The cooperative’s address is 604 E. American Blvd., which is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 84 and 6th St.
The meeting is free and open to the public.
Dr. Jackie Smith, AgriLife Extension economist at Lubbock and a meeting coordinator, said the program’s main speakers will be Dr. Joe Outlaw, co-director of The Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University, College Station, and Dr. Scott Brown from the University of Missouri.
“Outlaw and Brown were both utilized by the Agricultural Committees of Congress to analyze dairy policy changes considered in the 2014 farm bill and will be able to bring an inside perspective to the new dairy policy changes,” Smith said.
Smith said Outlaw will discuss the dairy provisions in the farm bill, and Brown will provide information and a tool he developed to help dairy producers understand the details and make decisions about the choices to be made.
“The current legislation eliminated some components of the dairy provisions and added the Dairy Margin Protection Program,” Smith said. “So we’ve asked Drs. Outlaw and Brown to briefly present an overview of all the dairy provisions, but then to concentrate mainly on the Margin Protection Program. The Margin Protection Program is a new and unique safety net program meant to provide dairy producers with indemnity payments when a composite U.S. dairy margin falls below the margin coverage levels the producer chooses on an annual basis.”
While this program is not meant to guarantee a profit, Smith said producers will be able to buy margin protection designed to protect farm equity by guarding against destructively low margins.
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