The CARES Act-funded Dairy Indemnity Program has distributed $7.6 million in direct relief payments to 1,550 dairy farmers in the commonwealth. Any dairy farmer who experienced losses due to discarded or displaced milk during the COVID-19 pandemic was eligible to apply.
“Early in the pandemic in Pennsylvania, many of our dairy farmers were forced to dump this milk and faced extreme uncertainty due to rapidly changing markets,” said Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding. “In this season of thanks, we are grateful that the legislature saw and met the needs of Pennsylvania’s dairy farmers with this program. These dollars don’t stop at the farm gate. They come back in your communities through grocery stores, schools, food banks and more.”
To qualify for direct relief payments, farmers’ losses must have occurred between March 6 and Sept. 30. Farmers were eligible for an immediate $1,500 in direct relief upon applying, followed by additional relief dollars with the remaining funds in the program.
Pennsylvania is home to nearly 7,000 dairy farms with an economic impact of $12 billion and more than 52,000 jobs. The commonwealth’s more than 500,000 cows produce more than 10.2 billion pounds of milk annually, ranking Pennsylvania seventh in the nation for total milk production.
