Gloom for New England’s Dairies

Steve Taylor
New England Correspondent

“We’re starving, that’s all I can tell you,” says Hugh Langmaid, a lifelong dairyman in North Danville, Vt., “but nobody forced us to farm.”

Langmaid’s comment typifies the gloom and resignation expressed by farmers in Vermont and New Hampshire about the prolonged depression in milk prices and the lack of signs of a turnaround anytime soon.

Maine dairy producers are in an envious position compared to their brethren in the other Northern New England states: they have a state program funded with a new $13 million legislative appropriation that aims to guarantee them a pay price of between $17 and $20 a hundredweight for the coming year, compared to the $12 or so regional blend price elsewhere presently.

Farmers aren’t getting their share, in Langmaid’s view, and rising volumes of imported dairy commodities are helping to drive down federal order prices in the Northeast and across the United States.

He says it’s up to President Obama to recognize the importance of preserving family farms and to initiate actions to that end. Langmaid and his son have a 50-cow purebred Holstein herd.

Lorna Eaton keeps the books on her family’s 240-cow dairy farm in Lunenburg, Vt., and her son Conan manages daily operations.

“The milk check showed up and Conan asked how we did. I ran the numbers and found I could pay the grain bill, the mortgage and the payroll, and with that I was $1,000 in the hole. I didn’t touch the repair bills, the electric, fuel and the rest.

“There’s just no money. My husband and I are holding our paychecks. What we paid down in 15 months’ time we’ve borrowed back in six months.”

Getting this kind of bad news month after month has Conan talking about selling the herd, but Lorna says she keeps assuring him “we’ll get through this.”

Eaton sees joblessness and hard times in the broader economy lowering demand for dairy products. When people are hurting financially they cut back on butter, cheese and milk, she reasons.

In Orwell, Vt., Miles Tudhope’s 95-cow operation is surviving by cutting back on every possible expenditure and crossing fingers that the farm avoids a major equipment breakdown or other large expense. But he and his wife aren’t paying themselves anything for their hard work, a situation that can’t continue for much longer.

Cutting back on feeding grain to his 190-cow herd has resulted in a slight loss of milk production but an increase in milkfat and protein tests, leading Roger Adams to focus on boosting reliance on homegrown forages to offset a further reduction in purchased concentrates.

“Lots of things are going to change on this farm if it’s going to keep going,” the Westmoreland, N.H., operator says. “There are a lot of things against us in this business, and we’ve got to try anything that will cut our costs.”

The Adams family runs a popular pancake restaurant in conjunction with a large maple operation adjacent to the dairy operation, and Adams admits the restaurant has been helping the dairy enterprise stay afloat.

Harold Larrabee in Knox, Maine, says dairy farmers in the Pine Tree State are in far better shape than those elsewhere in the Northeast, but he feels their good fortune is only for the short term, and that the long term may look a lot more like what’s been happening in the rest of the country.

Maine has long had a milk commission that has effectively set farm milk prices well above the Boston federal order. The state being surrounded on three sides by Canada and the Atlantic Ocean and having a critical mass of in-state processors have allowed the commission to be able to set over-order prices and make them stick.

Plus the state legislature in recent years has kicked in general fund money to shore up farm milk prices. Between over-orders and state contributions the premium for Maine producer has sometimes exceeded $7 over what farmers in adjacent New Hampshire and the rest of the Northeast have been paid.

Recognizing that in bad budget times the state may not be able to continue its generous support of dairy, a task force is being formed to try to come up with alternatives that will keep the dairy industry in Maine viable.

Larrabee, who milks 400 head, expects to serve on the panel.