Dairy Farmers’ Trip to D.C. Garners Mixed Feelings

Chris Torres
Staff Writer

Some 100 farmers, agribusiness owners and students took to the halls of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. last week to give their elected officials a sense of what the dairy industry is going through these days.

But are they convinced anything will truly come out of their trip? Depends on who you ask.

The trip was organized by the newly formed United Dairy Farmers and Friends along with help from the National Family Farm Coalition and other groups.

Two buses filled with people from New York and Pennsylvania left for Washington in the wee hours of the morning last Wednesday with a day full of meetings with members of Congress and their aides.

According to Tammy Graves, organizer of the event from New York state, the purpose was to come face to face with decision makers to educate them on the plight of dairy farmers as well as to make suggestions on policies they believe might help.

The day started with a trip to the offices of the National Farmers Union (NFU), where the group got a crash course in political lobbying.

After that, it was off to a full slate of meetings, 26 to be exact, where the group split off into smaller groups and met with representatives, senators, congressional aides and officials from the USDA.

The group came with four talking points: setting a minimum floor price for milk at $17; pushing more accurate cold storage product reporting; tougher oversight of milk protein concentrates (MPCs); and reforming the milk price system to better reflect the cost of production and current supplies on the market.

“We pretty much hit all the bases we wanted to. We did a pretty good job organizing ourselves. Everybody divided and conquered pretty well,” Graves said.

The group ended up getting some face time with a handful of elected officials, including the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Rep. Tim Holden (D-Pa.), Rep. Scott Murphy (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.)

While they came with some lofty goals for the day, Graves said the group left with a sobering reminder of just how slow and complicated the political process in Washington can be and why it can create frustration for many people.

During a 30-minute meeting with Peterson, the congressman told the group that any dairy policy would probably have to be combined into the next Farm Bill, which is up for renewal in 2012. According to Peterson, the reason is that any stand-alone policy probably could not garner enough votes to pass.

He added that his committee has formed a dairy task force in preparation for creating policy for the 2012 Farm Bill to build some sort of consensus on dairy issues.

Lancaster Farming contacted Peterson’s office for additional comments on his meeting with the group. While he was not available for comment, he provided a written statement through a spokesperson: “The economic crisis facing dairy farmers continues to be a major focus of the House Agriculture Committee. During a series of three hearings the committee held this year to look at the situation facing dairy farmers, we started the process of reviewing existing dairy policy and looking at proposals to improve the system. In addition, I have conducted frank and productive conversations with dairy farmers, including northeastern dairy farmers visiting Washington last week, and will continue to explore proposals to improve dairy policy that we might be able to include in the next Farm Bill.”

Still, it frustrated members of the group who feel that action on dairy policy should be taken now.

“It really scares me to think what the dairy industry will look by 2012,” she said.

One issue Graves felt they got the most attention was mandatory cold storage reporting. Many congressional aides told the group they were unaware of how this issue could possibly impact dairy pricing and were interested in learning more after the meetings.

“It just underscored the importance of dairy farmers feeding that kind of information to our elected officials,” she said. “They all had positive experiences and would do it again and enjoyed the opportunity. Some felt it was a great way to relieve frustration.”

Brian Gotham and his father, Richard Gotham, dairy farmers from northern New York, met with aides from the office of Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

The younger Gotham, who milks 600 cows, came to Washington this past summer for a similar rally that attracted 250 farmers.

He left optimistic after the meetings and if anything, felt that people were at least receptive to what he and the rest of his group had to say.

“It has not been stressed enough to farmers to go down there, with boots on the ground, to communicate, educate, share the information we need to provide them about our farms and what we’re going through,” Gotham said. “If they don’t get a broad range of information, the right decisions are not made down there. You got to educate these people.”

Tina and Gerald Carlin, dairy farmers from Meshoppen, Pa., organized a group of about 18 people from Pennsylvania to go to the meetings.

The couple have been to Washington many times in the past for similar events, so they have gotten a sense of the political environment there.

While they both felt that congressional leaders were much more receptive this time around, Gerald said he’d rather measure success by action taken on the issues.

“My impression is that they really have other things that are more front and center in their minds. Everybody got the point across quite clearly that we are hurting financially more than we ever have before,” he said. “I’ve been around that scene long enough not to have any confidence. But it’s good to have newer people go down because they aren’t as beat down.”

Hal Drick, a dairy farmer from Lycoming County, has been to Washington three times before for similar events.

He had mixed feelings of the days events on the way back home.

“I was hoping they would do something quicker, but they are kind of stalling,” Drick said. “We can hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”