Brown Announces New Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment Program

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), chairman of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Food, Nutrition, and Family Farms, announced the implementation of the new Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment (DELAP) program to provide loss-assistance payments to eligible dairy producers. The 2010 Agricultural Appropriations Bill authorized $290 million in assistance for the DELAP program.

 “Dairy farmers play a key role in the economic  success of Ohio’s small towns and rural communities,” Brown said. “With high production costs and plummeting farm-level prices, it’s critical that the Ohio dairy industry have necessary support.  This program will provide economic assistance to dairy farmers to stabilize their operations through these difficult economic times.”

This past summer, dairy farmers’ production costs exceeded market values by 50 percent. The DELAP program will provide eligible farmers with a one-time direct payment based on the amount of milk both produced and commercially marketed by their operation during the months of February through July 2009.  Production information from these months will be used to estimate a full year's production for an operation to calculate the payments, using a 6 million pound per dairy operation limit.

The DELAP program eligibility is determined by the following: 
•    Milk must be produced in the United States and marketed commercially at any time from February through July 2009;
•    Farm must have milk production data for those months;
•    Farm must certify all milk production produced and marketed by the dairy operation during that time.
•    Farm does not have an annual average adjusted gross nonfarm income of more than $500,000 for calendar years 2006 through 2008

More information on the DELAP program and eligibility requirements can be found HERE or through local FSA offices.

The first Ohioan to serve on the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee in more than 40 years, Brown is an outspoken advocate in Congress for Ohio’s dairy industry. In September, Brown called on the Chairman of the Agricultural Appropriations Committee to include $350 million in emergency spending to help the nations’ struggling dairy farmers. Brown, who previously contacted U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to coordinate listening sessions in Ohio with dairy farmers, additionally requested that the USDA “temporarily increase (dairy) purchase prices under the Dairy Price Support Program.” Subsequently, the USDA took Brown’s recommendation and temporarily increased farm-level prices.