Editor’s note: This opinion piece is by James Maroney, an art dealer and former organic dairy farmer who lives in Leicester.
In answer to Jane Lindholm’s questions on VPR’s Vermont Edition on Feb. 16, Roger Allbee, secretary of the Agency of Agriculture threw up a maze of seemingly limitless complexity, listing the standard canards that are colloquially thought to be at the root of the farmers’ problems: the antiquated and unfair federal milk marketing orders pricing system, an outsized milk processing company, Dean Foods, that controls 70 percent of the milk supply, and an uneven distribution of the retail price for milk.
Allbee offered no relief the farmers can rely upon. It is distressing that our officials cannot speak more plainly. I think at this point the farmers would prefer to be told that they seek relief from elected and politically appointed officials who, without impugning them, neither can, nor ever will, deliver the fix they want: more money for their present level of production. The secretary might have said that raising farm prices in New England cannot be achieved without cutting production all across the U.S., which, as he did say, western and midwestern farmers have the political and commercial power to prevent; or, which he did not say, without raising the price of milk for consumers, who are 99 percent of constituents. Higher prices will not come out of thin air. If farmers want a higher price, they must give consumers a very good reason to pay it and that reason cannot be more cheap milk that in the making pollutes the lake.
Allbee did say three things that caught my ear:
1. If, as he says, there is a milk shortage east of the Mississippi, there must be a tremendous glut on the other side sufficient to fill western and eastern demand at prices our farmers, even irrespective of the cost of shipping, cannot match. The only way to turn the tables on the western farmers would be to produce a bigger glut here at a still lower cost that would completely meet eastern demand with enough left over to meet part of western demand. This is virtually impossible.
2. He twice plugged his Keep Local Farms Program http://www.keeplocalfarms.org/. Allbee knows or should know that in order to raise the New England milk price, consumers would have to double their per capita consumption just for farmers to break even; they would have to triple consumption in order to restore farmers to middle class. He will make virtually no dent in the problem by asking college kids for their spare change (I think the program has raised something like $5,000). Even worse, to whatever extent the program does raise cash, the farmers would invest the money into new capacity to make more milk, creating a new, higher level of excess supply that cannot be sold. And the cycle unchanged begins anew.
3. Allbee seemed to be interested in supply control, although I think his department has taken no position on it. But in the interview, he said he supported “guest workers” on Vermont farms since “Americans do not want to do farm work.” Vermonters are welcoming to Mexican workers in our communities. But “guest workers” are one of several modalities that make milking three times a day and 800 cow herds possible. Huge herds and manure methane digesters are regarded as “Accepted Agricultural Practices” by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. Mega farmers receive official approbation, not to mention tax breaks, to be high production oriented. Rapid exit milking parlor systems, sexed semen, antibiotics, artificial fertilizers, petroleum-based herbicides, high protein supplement feeding, rBST and Lutalace etc. all contribute to over production, which, as the secretary seemed by his tacit approval of supply management to understand, is the main driver of low milk prices and the root of the dairy farmers’ problem. The fix cannot be to disregard the various modalities that make over production a reality.
USDA chief Tom Vilsack knows or should know that western farmers want to push eastern farmers into ruin so they can send their growing supply of cheap milk to fill eastern demand.
There was no mention at either the Hilton meeting with Sens. Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch or in the VPR interview of what role the business model for conventional dairy farming has played in creating the farmers’ dilemma. That is because the model is predicated upon surplus production, low prices, farm attrition and lake pollution, exactly the metrics they face. In fact, conventional dairy farming cannot be practiced without inviting these results.
It bears mentioning that Vilsack is the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture; he cannot take any action to shift the economic balance between farmers in one part of the country to the disadvantage of farmers in another. The fix that would be equitable to both regions must adjust U.S. food production systemwide, such that eastern and western farmers make only enough food for their (pre-defined) communities and draw out of the earth no more resources than the earth can replenish. That is the meaning of “sustainable agriculture” and there is in New England and other parts of the U.S. an inchoate organic food movement working to achieve it. That said, conventional agriculture is deeply rooted in the U.S. and the alternative, no matter how devoutly to be wished, is still a very long way off.
Vilsack is, however, not being entirely forthright when he says that it is time for the dairy farmers to settle their differences and agree on a unified plan of action. He knows or should know that western farmers want to push eastern farmers into ruin so they can send their growing supply of cheap milk to fill eastern demand. They will not bargain away the advantage they now enjoy for no greater advantage to themselves. Furthermore, Vilsack knows or should know, that it is illegal under the Capper Volstead Act of 1922 for farmers to cartel to limit production in order to raise prices. To whatever extent supply control plans like those being circulated by Dairy Farmers Working Together or the Holstein Association gather any support, they will invite either federal scrutiny or a challenge from processors.
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Both Vilsack and Allbee refuse to admit that subsidized Western milk is causing the east coast milk surplus, thereby keeping our milk prices low. Western electric power costs about half that in the northeast thanks to the large federal dams. Western water is also subsidized, in support of agricultural use. Milk is over 90% water and this is what California trucks to the east coast. My dad was a VT dairy farmer for years and he used to say: “They don’t give us a subsidy for our snow.”
As for lake pollution, we can’t blame that on the farmers. There has been considerable work done to keep farm manure from entering the water and we still measure pollution in the lake. Much more pollution comes from urban residential and commercial development. If our farmers go out of business we would see more development and pollution than we do now.