McGovern, others urge USDA to provide relief to dairy farmers

Several federal lawmakers from Massachusetts joined other Washington lawmakers on Wednesday urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide dairy farmers with relief and new insurance. The two congressman who represent Franklin County in the U.S. House of Representatives, James McGovern and Richard Neal, and U.S. senators from Massachusetts, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, joined 19 others including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy of Vermont in signing a letter to the USDA.According to McGovern’s office, in the letter to Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, the members of Congress from both major parties emphasized that safety net programs for dairy farmers, such as the Margin Protection Program have failed to provide farmers with adequate support from price fluctuations. They urged the Agriculture Department to make milk an eligible commodity under the Federal Crop Insurance Program — which successfully insures farmers across the country for hundreds of different kinds of crops — and to work with USDA’s Risk Management Agency to develop new insurance products for dairy producers.“We write today to urge the USDA to use its existing authority to provide relief to dairy farmers in New England and across the country. Dairy farmers have had to cope with double-digit price declines year over year since 2014,” wrote McGovern and 22 other members of Congress. “We urge you to utilize existing authorities to expand and enhance insurance products for dairy farmers. We request that (Risk Management Agency) work with the Federal Crop Insurance Corp. to determine milk as a distinct agricultural commodity eligible for Federal Crop Insurance coverage. Additionally, we would urge the RMA to use existing authorities to develop additional dairy insurance products.”