New federal farm bill fails local farmers

Specter and Casey amendment defeated

By TOM KANE

WASHINGTON, DC - Dairy farmers are unhappy, but not surprised, that a bill to help them get a fair price for their milk was rejected by the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

An amendment introduced by Pennsylvania Senators Arlen Specter and Bob Casey would have included a provision in the 2007 Farm Bill that would link dairy farmers’ cost of production to the price they get for the milk they produce. Over the past year, feed prices have risen 60 percent, the cost of energy has risen nearly 90 percent, yet the pricing system for raw milk has varied only slightly for the last 10 years.

The pricing system that determines what price farmers get for milk is so complex and convoluted that most farmers don’t understand how the system works. When the coop truck comes and takes away the milk from the barn, farmers have to wait weeks until their check arrives before they know the amount of money paid.

The Specter-Casey amendment was to eliminate all that, but it was not to be.

“There was too much opposition from Senators from other farm states who objected to the inclusion, so the agriculture committee threw it out,” Casey said.

“The inclusion of the cost of production would have cut into the profits of the large processing companies, the large coops and the big food companies,” said John Bunting, an agriculture writer for Milkweed Magazine and a dairy farmer. “So, they killed it. It doesn’t matter to the folks in Washington if the farmers are hurt since, from a political point of view, farmers represent only one percent of the population.”

The farm bill draft now goes to the Senate floor for debate and a vote. “It’s always possible that the provision to include the cost of operations could be reinstated, but it’s not very likely,” Casey said.

The reaction by local dairy farmers was typified by dairyman Joe Davitt of Davitt Farm in Waymart, PA. “We didn’t expect the inclusion to succeed,” Davitt said. “We were hoping but there’s too much opposition from the big guys.”

Over the last six months, dairy farmers from the big dairy states, including Pennsylvania, have been in a state of crisis with the closing of dairy farms occurring with intense frequency. Pennsylvania has seen the closing of over 300 dairy farms in the last year, according to Casey.

In 1960, there were 1,200 dairy farms in Wayne County. In 1997, the number was 240. Today, there are only 90 dairy farms left in the county, according to statistics provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

“The small family dairy farm is an endangered species,” Davitt said.