Northeast Farmers React to USDA Dairy Relief News
Submitted by Editor on Thu, 12/24/2009 - 12:40pm.
Steve Taylor
New England Correspondent
MINOT, Maine — “It’s gonna help. Maybe pay for a load of grain,” said Noella Hemond when asked about the USDA Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment (DELAP) program announced last week.
A 90-year-old widow, Hemond presides over a high-producing 250-cow operation in western Maine that has been experiencing the same dire financial stress the rest of the 2,000-odd dairy farmers in New England have been facing over the past year.
There’s nearly unanimous feeling in the region that the DELAP payments due to be issued shortly will bring a little relief, but that the structural problems of the milk marketing system are still in place to cloud the long-term future for dairy producers.
Dave Keith, operator of a 200-cow farm in North Haverhill, N.H., sums up the feeling of many:
“A few thousand dollars now won’t take care of the $250,000 we’ve lost over the past year, but I will accept it. But I just hope after this year that things turn around and that we have a supply management program ready to go when the next downturn hits.”
The disastrous farm milk prices that kicked in nearly a year ago have been an equal-opportunity plague, stressing farms of all sizes.
Robert Jacquier in East Canaan, Conn., heads a three-generation family partnership cropping 2,600 acres in a 30-mile radius to feed 900 milkers and hundreds of young stock. The partnership is in desperate need as it struggles to cover costs and leave enough for family living expenses, especially for young partners with small children.
Jacquier says Connecticut producers are lucky to be receiving some support from a special appropriation by the state legislature, but given the difficult economic times for state governments it’s not a secure income source for the future.
“We lost a lot when the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact expired (in 2001),” he said. “That was a partnership that involved producers, processors, retailers and consumers that worked. And it had supply control.”
The compact covered the six New England states and functioned for four years, generating premiums on Class I fluid milk sales within the region. But it wasn’t reauthorized in Washington due to intense political opposition from dairy interests in other parts of the country.
Peter Waterman in Sabattus, Maine, milks 53 cows and is reluctant to accept any kind of handout, but he will take his DELAP payment because “every little bit helps” when financial conditions are this bad. He, too, thinks the milk pricing system nationwide needs to be overhauled before the next down cycle sets in.
And Gordon Richardson of Hartland, Vt., with a 60-cow Jersey herd is similarly realistic. “We have to take money from wherever we can,” he says, adding that he laments the way government assistance payments are always calculated on a hundredweight basis and neglect to take in the higher component values of milk from colored breeds.
Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders gets credit from dairy producers throughout the New England region for his dogged insistence on some form of federal assistance for beleaguered farm finances, including from Gordon Cook of Hadley, Mass.
But Cook thinks farmers would be better off if all the $350 million Sanders won in the appropriations process had been used to buy cheese rather than just the $60 million earmarked for cheese purchases for nutrition programs.
“I’m sorry the government isn’t going to use all the money to buy cheese as that would have more favorable impact on farm milk prices long-term, and farmers would be better off. I don’t mean just barrel and block cheese, I mean all kinds of cheese for food banks, soup kitchens and the like,” Cook said.
“This payment to somebody shipping two million pounds a year isn’t even going to pay for a load of grain.
“But I’m still going to champion some kind of supply management to try to prevent the kind of situation we’ve been in,” Cook said.
Steve Taylor
New England Correspondent
MINOT, Maine — “It’s gonna help. Maybe pay for a load of grain,” said Noella Hemond when asked about the USDA Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment (DELAP) program announced last week.
A 90-year-old widow, Hemond presides over a high-producing 250-cow operation in western Maine that has been experiencing the same dire financial stress the rest of the 2,000-odd dairy farmers in New England have been facing over the past year.
There’s nearly unanimous feeling in the region that the DELAP payments due to be issued shortly will bring a little relief, but that the structural problems of the milk marketing system are still in place to cloud the long-term future for dairy producers.
Dave Keith, operator of a 200-cow farm in North Haverhill, N.H., sums up the feeling of many:
“A few thousand dollars now won’t take care of the $250,000 we’ve lost over the past year, but I will accept it. But I just hope after this year that things turn around and that we have a supply management program ready to go when the next downturn hits.”
The disastrous farm milk prices that kicked in nearly a year ago have been an equal-opportunity plague, stressing farms of all sizes.
Robert Jacquier in East Canaan, Conn., heads a three-generation family partnership cropping 2,600 acres in a 30-mile radius to feed 900 milkers and hundreds of young stock. The partnership is in desperate need as it struggles to cover costs and leave enough for family living expenses, especially for young partners with small children.
Jacquier says Connecticut producers are lucky to be receiving some support from a special appropriation by the state legislature, but given the difficult economic times for state governments it’s not a secure income source for the future.
“We lost a lot when the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact expired (in 2001),” he said. “That was a partnership that involved producers, processors, retailers and consumers that worked. And it had supply control.”
The compact covered the six New England states and functioned for four years, generating premiums on Class I fluid milk sales within the region. But it wasn’t reauthorized in Washington due to intense political opposition from dairy interests in other parts of the country.
Peter Waterman in Sabattus, Maine, milks 53 cows and is reluctant to accept any kind of handout, but he will take his DELAP payment because “every little bit helps” when financial conditions are this bad. He, too, thinks the milk pricing system nationwide needs to be overhauled before the next down cycle sets in.
And Gordon Richardson of Hartland, Vt., with a 60-cow Jersey herd is similarly realistic. “We have to take money from wherever we can,” he says, adding that he laments the way government assistance payments are always calculated on a hundredweight basis and neglect to take in the higher component values of milk from colored breeds.
Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders gets credit from dairy producers throughout the New England region for his dogged insistence on some form of federal assistance for beleaguered farm finances, including from Gordon Cook of Hadley, Mass.
But Cook thinks farmers would be better off if all the $350 million Sanders won in the appropriations process had been used to buy cheese rather than just the $60 million earmarked for cheese purchases for nutrition programs.
“I’m sorry the government isn’t going to use all the money to buy cheese as that would have more favorable impact on farm milk prices long-term, and farmers would be better off. I don’t mean just barrel and block cheese, I mean all kinds of cheese for food banks, soup kitchens and the like,” Cook said.
“This payment to somebody shipping two million pounds a year isn’t even going to pay for a load of grain.
“But I’m still going to champion some kind of supply management to try to prevent the kind of situation we’ve been in,” Cook said.
