June 3nd, 2009 Wisconsin State Farmer
By: Zena McFadden
MANCHESTER, IOWA
Dairy farmers from five states rallied in Manchester, Iowa, Saturday (May 30) asking that the government set a floor on milk prices to cover their cost of production.
More than 150 farmers and their organizations, families and supporters spoke from noon until after 3 p.m. about the dire straits that farms and families are in as a result of the 50 percent drop in milk prices paid to producers since last year.
“This has reached a crisis point in rural America. It is impossible for dairy farmers to pay their bills and many face losing their farms if something isn’t done,” Jerry Harvey, a dairy farmer from Promise City, Iowa, who helped organize the rally, said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that the average cost of producing 100 pounds of milk this year was well over $16 while the base price paid for Class I milk produced was $10.97.
Rally participants want the government to pass the Federal Milk Marketing Improvement Act of 2009, known also as the Specter-Casey Bill or S 889, currently before the Senate Committee on Agriculture. The bill would set a price for milk that would make sure that farmers are able to pay the costs associated with the production of milk.
Speakers maintained that the current complicated pricing system along with farm programs in use today make for a broken agriculture system.
According to Harvey, the Milk Income Loss Contract program that recently added a dairy feed ration cost adjustment is not solving the problems faced by dairy farmers.
“The government gives us a MILC check each month. That check on an average-size dairy in Iowa, if you milk between 15 and 100 cows ... a small dairyman, and you are getting a 55 to 60 pound per cow average, you will get a check for $1,000 to $2,000 a month. We are borrowing $5,000 and $6,000 to pay the feed bills. I would rather have a better pricing system,” Harvey said.
Rally participants were asking that a floor price be set and that the current MILC program, which they consider a handout, be eliminated.
“We are a family farm and all we are asking for is a fair price for our product, not a handout from the government, not an MILC payment, just a fair price,” Jennifer Bailey, a dairy farmer from Tomah, Wis., said.
“We cannot get out of this reality by becoming more efficient or working harder. I have tried that, a lot of you have tried that. This is how we have survived to date. This 25-year experiment has failed,” Bryan Gotham, of Edwards, N.Y., said.
The burden of low prices is not being shared equally by all of those in the dairy industry according to Joel Greeno, a dairy farmer from Kendall, Wis., and president of the American Raw Milk Producers. “While farmers are going further in debt, Kraft and Dean Foods have been making some pretty substantial profits,” Greeno said. “And their quarterly earning reports have shown it.”
Consumers are not benefiting much from the low prices being paid to farmers either according to various speakers at the rally. “We have heard today how the prices for milk in the stores have stayed up while the prices have gone down for farmers,” Francis Thicke, an Iowa organic dairy farmer, said.
While the focus of the rally was on dairy, speakers recognized that producers in other areas of agriculture are also facing low prices and high costs. These conditions are making it hard to get loans.
Rural banks are more reluctant to lend as prices for various commodities have dropped.
Bailey and her husband have a diversified farm where they raise grain and beef as well as producing milk. This variety has helped them in the past when products in one agricultural sector floundered.
“Usually there is a market that we can depend on for cash flow, whether it be cattle, grain or the milk. This year it has not been the case for us at all,” Bailey said.
John Hansen, of the Nebraska Farmers Union, pointed out that dairy farmers need to recognize the breadth of the problem.
“When our neighbor down the road is having a problem in his area, we say, well I don’t produce that crop or that commodity ... or I am not a beef producer, not a hog producer and it won’t bother me. But guess what, what goes around, comes around. We are all in this together,” Hansen said.
Some farmers who were too busy in the fields planting or cutting hay sent their wives to the rally. Laura Covert came from upstate New York to participate. “No farmer deserves the strain and stress that has been piled on over the last year,” Covert said.
Hansen was optimistic about what can be done to overcome the crisis. Too often the ag community tells themselves that there is not much we can do Hansen said. “I tell you that there is a lot we can do. And when we get organized and informed, and constructively engaged we can have an enormous impact.”
Farm Aid leader and country western singer Willie Nelson spoke with the crowd via cell phone at the end of the rally. Nelson maintains that “setting a fair price for milk won’t fix all the problems that led to the current crisis, but it may be the only way to keep thousands of dairy farmers on their farms this year.”
The rally was sponsored by Farm Aid, Family Farm Defenders, Pro Ag, American Raw Milk Producers Pricing Association, Iowa Farmers Union, Center for Rural Affairs and Food Democracy Now.
