July 16, 2010
New US bill to boost dairy prices in Vermont
Due to low dairy production costs, Vermont is facing the paradox of having fewer dairy farms but an excess supply of milk, which has plunged milk prices so low that some dairy farmers are unable to sustain their business.
One of the consequences of excessive production is low prices, and in recent years milk prices have plunged so low that fewer and fewer farms have been able to stay in business. To halt destructive swings in the milk price, Senator Bernard Sanders has introduced a bill, cosponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy to create a new system that would curb the milk surplus and support the price farmers receive. Representative Peter Welch has introduced a similar bill in the House.
Low prices are a major reason that the number of dairy farms in Vermont has fallen by half in the last 15 years. There are now only 1,000 farms, and agriculture officials fear that another 200 could be lost.
Milk is still plentiful even as the number of farms has fallen by half because of farm consolidations and because of the growth of corporate mega-farms, particularly in states such as California, Texas and Idaho. Breeding and technology have also boosted production. One hundred cows produce much more milk today than they did 50 years ago.
Vermont does not have the kind of giant farms that exist in the west, but even here concentration has allowed some farms to add hundreds of cows, primarily in the dairy heartland of Addison and Franklin counties. Meanwhile, operations in more marginal areas have dwindled.
Regions such as Vermont have an interest in promoting local farms, smaller in scale, both as a way to maintain an open working landscape, to preserve a rural way of life, and to ensure a wholesome fresh product that originates close to home. Thus, farm policies should focus on ways to keep small- and medium-sized operations in business. The supply management bill proposed by Sanders, Leahy and Welch could discourage the ballooning production caused by big operators, which contributes to surpluses that drive down the price, squeezing smaller farms.
The Vermont Farm Bureau, an organisation reflecting mainstream farm opinion, supports the new bill after years of opposing previous supply management schemes.
But the Farm Bureau in Wisconsin, which has 13 times the number of dairy farms as Vermont, opposes the bill. Dairy farmers have long been wary of programmes that would remove as an option the choice of putting on more cows in order to boost income. The National Milk Producers Federation also opposes the bill. It is likely that voice of major corporate operators is heard within the federation.
In the meantime, more Vermont farmers have turned to organic dairy farming in order to benefit from significantly higher prices, though the number of organic farmers remains relatively small.
