State hopes consumers will pay more
for milk, make donations to farmers
Got milk?
Got a little extra money to pay for it? And by the way, wanna donate cash for a T-shirt?
Those are the questions Vermont’s Agency of Agriculture is putting to the public on the new Web site it’s unveiling today at a press conference at the Conant Farm in Richmond.
The site, http://www.keeplocalfarms.org/, encourages people to make direct donations to the New England Family Dairy Farms Cooperative. For $30, donors get a Keep Local Farms bumper sticker; for $250 “dairy defenders” get a bumper sticker and a T-shirt. Tote bags are available for a $100 donation. (Contributors should know, however, that these donations are not tax-deductible, as NEFDFC is not a 501C3, IRS authorized public charity.)
In addition, officials hope to use the certified fair trade model to encourage consumers to pay a small surcharge for milk products from retailers, hospitals and colleges that participate in the Keep Local Farms program.
The idea is to put more money in farmers’ pockets at a time when dairy farmers are losing hundreds of dollars every day they stay in business.
For every $3 gallon of milk sold at a grocery store, the farmer gets 90 cents. The kicker? That gallon cost $1.80 to produce. In addition to record low milk prices, Vermont farmers are facing higher-than-ever input costs for grain, fertilizer and supplies.
Keep Local Farms products would bear the program logo, and would be marketed in the same way fair trade products like coffee and chocolate, are promoted. The money would be collected by NEFDFC and distributed to the 75 percent of farmers who are members of the cooperative (lifetime membership is $5), according to Jenny Bourbeau, of the New England Dairy Promotion Board.
Officials couldn’t say how much retailers and colleges would be asked to charge, nor could they say how much money they hope keeplocalfarms.org will generate.
Three universities and one major retailer have expressed interest in the program, according to Jacques Parent, a member of the board that oversees Keep Local Farms.
The agency says it has conducted studies that show the milk-drinking public is willing to shell out a little spare change for dairy products to keep farms going. Though how much they’re willing to spend seemed to be something of a mystery. Officials I spoke with, Bourbeau, Parent and Kelly Loftus, the communications director for the agency, didn’t know what the Keep Local Farms surcharge fees would be.
“We did some studies with consumers two or three years ago and it was found that consumers were willing to pay more for a gallon of milk if they knew that that extra money was going directly to the farmers,” Loftus says. “We’re working with hospitals and universities to incorporate this program into their food service aspects.”
Loftus says the state doesn’t have the money to step in this time to help tide farmers over in this dairy downturn the way it did in 2006 when prices hit a trough. Keep Local Farms is an alternative to state support, she says.
“We don’t have that financial flexibility and that’s not a long-term fix,” Loftus says.
When asked whether the web site will make a difference for farmers in the coming months, Parent, a farmer from Highgate said it’s worth a shot.
“It could be a real big deal or a big flop,” Parent says. “It’s going to depend on public opinion.”
