Congressman Bernie Sanders told members of the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery at their annual meeting Saturday that he would continue to fight for family farmers. Photos by Bethany M. Dunbar
ST. ALBANS — Dairy farmers heard Saturday of a national “tsunami” of milk that is going to drive prices to farmers down drastically.
Yet milk is short in the Northeast region, and state Secretary of Agriculture Steve Kerr told members of the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery at their annual meeting Saturday that more milk is needed in Vermont.
“Somebody’s going to make milk in this country,” he told about 250 farmers and political leaders. “It bugs me to think the Californians might win this one.”
In the hallway, Andrea Asch of Ben and Jerry’s told people who stopped to check out her booth that “We don’t want to see any more farms go away because we’re growing like crazy and we need milk.”
Ben and Jerry’s is part of the Dairy Stewardship Alliance, which is working with the University of Vermont Extension System and UVM’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture.
Yet Gary Hanman, senior advisor of Dairy Farms of America, said the cheese market had closed the day before the meeting at a half a penny under the federal support price. That cheese price will mean milk prices in the range of $9.97 per hundred pounds in the near future, which would be about 86 cents a gallon.
Later in the meeting, St. Albans General Manager Leon Berthiaume told the farmers the average price for milk for St. Albans members in 2005 was $15.27, about $1.31 a gallon.
Although it was not announced at Saturday’s meeting, the co-op lost $4.4-million last year, according to the St. Albans Messenger. The loss was blamed on the closing of Lucille Farm Products in Swanton, which had an outstanding milk bill of $7.8-million, according to the newspaper.
Mr. Hanman said the coming price drop is a short-term problem, but there is a longer-term problem because there are 49 replacement heifers out there for every cow being milked right now in the United States. Nationally, milk production is going up 5 percent while cheese sales are down. He said the result is going to be a tsunami of surplus milk.
A program called Cooperatives Working Together will meet on March 6 in Washington to try to take some of those animals out of production. CWT is a farmer-funded program that pays for the slaughter of animals and tries to drive up exports. CWT had a goal of exporting 90 million pounds of products, Mr. Hanman said, but less than three million pounds have been sold offshore.
In New England, 43 herds (4,798 cows) have been slaughtered through CWT since mid 2003, according to Roger Eldridge, vice president of government relations for the National Milk Producers Federation. In the west, 81 farms (26,993 cows) went through CWT.
“The price support program didn’t buy a single pound of butter or powder or cheese last year,” he added.
Meanwhile Congress is getting ready to work on another major farm bill, which is done every five years. The next one is due in 2007.
“The timing couldn’t be worse,” Mr. Hanman said. High numbers of sales to the government to shore up prices in 2006 will not help politically, he said.
It’s clear that Vermont’s delegation will do what it can to help the dairy farmers. The St. Albans members heard from Bernie Sanders, who is in
Peter Welch (standing), who is running for Congress, visits with Earle Matthews, who has the last operating dairy farm in Essex Town. Mr. Matthews’ son Jason is at right in the foreground, and at left is Ted Bessette of Fairfax.
Congress and running for a seat in the Senate. Rich Tarrant, who is running against him, was campaigning at the meeting, as was Peter Welch, who is running for the seat Mr. Sanders is leaving.
Senator Pat Leahy and Senator Jim Jeffords also had spokesmen at the meeting.
Congressman Sanders said he will continue to fight for family farms.
“We are a great nation, but there is something wrong when the farmers are forced off the land.”
He said the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program is far from perfect, but has helped Vermont farmers, and he was pleased to be able to get that reauthorized. It has brought $45-million to Vermont farmers.
The good news, he said, is “We’re beginning to bring together regions of agriculture that have historically fought.”
“Healthy locally grown food is what we need.”
He said he will also fight for health care for everyone.
Tom Berry of Senator Jeffords’ office said his boss’ favorite work in 30 years of public life has been representing the dairy farmers. In all that time, he has counted the St. Albans members among his most important advisors, Mr. Berry said. Mr. Jeffords’ family comes from Enosburg originally, and he does not often miss a Dairy Days festival there.
Bob Paquin of Senator Leahy’s office said his boss will really miss Senator Jeffords. When the two were on the House and Senate agriculture committees, Vermont had fantastic clout on farm policy, he said.
“We’ve had a great team.”
He said they are working on an Earmark grant for alternative manure systems, and gearing up for the farm bill debate by working with the rest of New England and mid-Atlantic states.
Mr. Berthiaume reported that St. Albans Cooperative Creamery, which was started in 1919, sold 1.26 billion pounds of milk and dairy products this year. There are 72 employees at the co-operative and it has $226-million in sales. More than 85 percent of the milk by volume earned quality premiums.
“We did lose 60 dairy farm operations in the last two years,” he said, but volume continues to increase. The average is 2.4 million pounds of milk per farm. Most members are near St. Albans, but 20 percent are in Addison County and 18 percent are in the Northeast Kingdom.
Mr. Kerr said Vermont produces two and a half billion pounds a year, which means that St. Albans handles about half of it.
He told the farmers that while there is some bad news, there is reason for optimism.
“We’re seeing prices sag,” he said, and high fuel prices are making the crunch worse. But he has faith in Vermonters to figure out some solutions. Vermont has often come up with ideas such as the dairy compact, he said.
“We can do this again....
“We’ve got ourselves. We’ve got our imaginations,” he said. “We’re hard workers in Vermont.”
“One of our great opportunities is energy,” he said, referring to energy sources such as methane and biomass that can be found on farms.
He said conventional farmers and organic farmers should not fight with each other.
“Vermont has about 100 organic farms,” he said. That is about 10 percent. Mr. Kerr said the fight over genetically modified organisms is “not a real fight,” and he hopes it ends soon so farmers can work together on real issues.
Mr. Kerr and some of the others mentioned that immigration laws affecting farm workers are likely to become a big issue.
“I’m not smart enough to figure out how you balance this whole issue,” he said, but it will be debated in Congress. In some places, farms on the border are being raided to check workers’ credentials.
“The Vermont State Police are not ratcheting this thing up,” he said. But he said he knows there are farmers who have workers from other countries milking their cows, and there are few alternatives these days. Vermonters are not waiting for these milking jobs, Mr. Kerr said.
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