This year’s Dairy Margin Coverage sign-up period won’t be a mad scramble, but it’s coming up fast. In fact, Oct. 5 is the first day to sign up for 2027 coverage.
Brooke Rollins, ag secretary, announced the new sign-up period, and enrollment deadline of Dec. 18, during a whirlwind visit to World Dairy Expo on Sept. 30. It’s a big change from the 2026 sign-up period, which lasted just over a month and forced dairy farmers to make lightning-quick decisions about one of the government’s key insurance programs for the industry.
DMC provides financial protection when the difference between the national all-milk price and average national feed cost falls below a producer-selected coverage level.
The Working Families Tax Cut Act, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, reauthorized DMC through 2031 with several changes that took effect with the 2026 program year.
These included expanding the amount of milk production eligible for Tier 1 protection from 5 million to 6 million pounds; allowing farmers to update production histories to better reflect their current operations; and providing a 25% premium discount to farmers who sign up through 2031.
January and February were the last months enrolled farmers saw an indemnity payout, but with rising feed costs, more indemnity payments are expected this fall.
Rollins spent a few hours at World Dairy Expo visiting dairy farmers and industry officials before heading to the Case IH plant in Racine, Wis., for an event.
She touched on several issues during her visit, including the possibility of the government allowing new base acres for alfalfa and grass hay.
USDA completed its first base acre expansion in two decades this year, adding up to 30 million new base acres nationwide for the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs.
While alfalfa was not included as a covered commodity for the purpose of increased base acres, farmers could have included up to 15% of their farm’s total tillable acreage planted to eligible non-program crops, including alfalfa, between 2019 and 2023.
Grass hay, though, was excluded entirely from the base acres increase.
While the change in base acres came because of the One Big Beautiful Bill, Rollins said she would be open to revisiting opening additional base acres for grass hay, although she provided no concrete details on how it could happen.
“I think it’s a really important point and especially as we’re looking to rebuild cattle herds, rebuild dairy herds, and really get back to where we’re hoping to be very soon,” she said.
Rollins also talked about the possibility of the government opening a third port of entry for Mexican cattle crossing the southern border.
USDA began a phased reopening of southern ports of entry for Mexican cattle on Aug. 24 after a 15-month shutdown due to the New World screwworm outbreak. More than 1.5 million head of Mexican cattle crossed into the U.S. each year before the screwworm outbreak.
Douglas, Ariz., was the first port reopened, followed by Santa Teresa, N.M., on Sept. 24.
A third port of entry, Columbus, N.M., could be reopened in a month if confirmed live cases of New World screwworm — there are only three active cases being reported now — remain low, Rollins said.
She said a facility in Mexico that opened this past summer could be capable of producing 100 million sterile flies by the end of the year, while an additional sterile fly facility in south Texas could be opened by next spring.
“The containment strategy is working while we build those new facilities,” Rollins said. “The resumption of trade continues. It will take us a while to get back to that 1.5 million head crossing, maybe a couple of years. Until then we will just keep building up.”