More and more farms are being taken over by corporate farms. Even the
few remaining family farms are under the control of corporations. The
need for profit at all cost will drive farms out of business. Even
then the corporations will suck the marrow from the farmer's bones.
We can only stand ready to teach and lead the farmers, to an
understanding of their Master's intentions, and ways of retaking
control of their Lands.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/9/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://themilitant.com/2018/08/04/dairy-farmers-instead-of-making-a-living-were-just-making-debt/
Dairy farmers: ‘Instead of making a living, we’re just making debt’
By John Staggs
Vol. 82/No. 30
August 13, 2018
From left, Barb Troester, Brenda Cochran and Donna Hall from Farm Women
United, which sponsored hearing in Lairdsville, Pennsylvania, July 24 to
discuss crisis facing dairy farmers.
Militant/Janet Post
From left, Barb Troester, Brenda Cochran and Donna Hall from Farm Women
United, which sponsored hearing in Lairdsville, Pennsylvania, July 24 to
discuss crisis facing dairy farmers.
LAIRDSVILLE, Pa. — “Dairy farming just doesn’t work anymore,” Ben
McCarty, a dairy farmer from Lycoming County, told an all-day “Dairy
Farm Family Crisis Hearing” here July 24. “Instead of making a living
you just make debt.”
Dairy farmers spoke out at the gathering, sponsored by Farm Women
United, testifying to the depth of the crisis they face. The event was
held at the volunteer firehouse, with farmers coming from New York, New
Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Organizers opened the session explaining the crisis is caused by the low
prices dairy farmers get for their milk. Since 2015, the average price
farmers receive has fallen below $18 per hundred-weight — $1.55 a gallon
— while the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the cost of
production for medium-to-small dairy farms is from $18 to $21
hundredweight. Farmers pointed out they never actually get that
“average” price.
Barb Troester, who runs a 700-cow dairy farm with her husband Leroy near
Mifflinburg, some 40 miles away, spoke about the deductions the milk
co-op takes out of her check. “I added it up and figured that every time
the milk truck comes, which is every day, it costs us $1,800 in
deductions,” she said. “Our average price comes to just $14.37 per
hundredweight. Dairy farmers work hard seven days a week, 365 days a
year, yet I am not ashamed to tell you that the bank owns us, they
really do.”
Judy Oliver, another Pennsylvania dairy farmer, also held up her milk
check, pointing out the long list of deductions the co-op took from her
$16.50 hundredweight price.
Demand for guaranteed price floor
The over 50 farmers and others at the hearing endorsed a proposal for an
immediate $20 hundredweight floor on the milk price for farmers. “This
looks like it might be more than the cost of production, but remember
all the deductions they will be taking off your $20,” Arden Tewksbury,
director of Progressive Agriculture Organization, told the farmers. “The
Federal Milk Marketing Orders that sets the price won’t give us cost of
production, but they let the dairy companies and co-ops deduct a cost of
production ‘make allowance’ of up to $2 hundredweight — plus all the
other deductions they make.”
Tewksbury has been promoting this $20 floor price demand to other farm
and dairy farm groups for the last several months.
Dairy cooperatives handle most farmers’ milk. Five of them handle 43
percent nationwide. They are farmer-owned and governed, in theory, but
the big ones like Land O’ Lakes and Dairy Farmers of America function
like big-business monopolies.
Claudia and Jonathan Haar, dairy farmers from New York state, described
the lawsuit they are part of that is challenging the way large co-op
bosses ignore the ownership rights of dairy farmers. The basis for the
challenge is that for the last three years co-op dairy farmer members’
income has dropped, but the co-ops’ profits have tripled.
Tewksbury reminded participants that the price is still set by
Department of Agriculture Federal Milk Marketing Orders, which is
supposed to take dairy farmers’ costs into account. “They seem to listen
to the big co-ops and dairies like Land O’Lakes, Dean Foods and Walmart
to set a price that pleases them,” he said. “I urge you all to call your
congressional representative and get them to put the $20 floor in the
2018 Farm Bill. If it passes like it is now, our dairy crisis will get
worse.”
Intensity marked Dairy Farm Family Crisis Hearing in Lairdsville,
Pennsylvania, July 24.
Militant/Janet Post
Intensity marked Dairy Farm Family Crisis Hearing in Lairdsville,
Pennsylvania, July 24.
The event heard a number of reports covering different aspects of the
crisis. Donna Hall, vice president of Farm Women United, explained ways
big dairy companies manipulate imports of powdered milk to say there is
a “glut of milk.” They use this to drive down what they pay farmers.
Gerald Carlin explained how the big cheese dairies use “milk protein
concentrate” from left over milk fat after low-fat milk is produced to
double the amount of cheese they get from every hundredweight of milk.
“So with less milk being used to make even more cheese, they also say
we’ve produced a ‘glut,’” he said.
Other farmers explained how they were hit by changes in the Federal
School Lunch Program made under the Barack Obama administration. They
stopped offering whole milk in federal school lunch programs, only
supporting 1 percent or nonfat milk. Now schools are cutting back on
milk orders, Tewksbury and other dairy farmers said, because young
people don’t like the low-fat milk.
When all is said and done, farmer Barb Troester said, “We need a fair
price.”
Because farmers can’t make a living, no matter how hard they try,
there’s an increase in farmer suicides today, Tina Carlin said. “If we
just had a fair milk price we wouldn’t need the suicide hotlines.”
Carlin was one of the founders in January of Farm Women United, which
now has chapters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Tennessee and New
York. Carlin and her husband Gerald had been dairy farmers all their
lives, until low prices forced them to sell their dairy cows in order to
survive.
Janet Post in Philadelphia contributed to this article.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •SWP: Workers need to take political power
•SWP takes party, program to workers on doorsteps
•US capitalist rulers face deepening political crisis
•‘Militant’ sets fight against ban in Illinois federal prison
•Dairy farmers: ‘Instead of making a living, we’re just making debt’
•‘Nation-state’ law sets back fight for recognition of Israel,
Palestinian state
Feature Articles •Dallas film spotlights 1973 cop murder of Santos
Rodriguez
Also In This Issue •EU leaders, Greek gov’t keep squeeze on workers
•US gov’t meets with Taliban to seek end to Afghan war
•Cops who killed Eric Garner ‘should be put in jail’
•NY meeting celebrates, points to example of Cuban Revolution
On the Picket Line •Georgia school bus drivers fight for reinstatement
after sickout
Books of the Month •The fight to stop deportation of the ‘man who has no
papers’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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