Meeting

NYS Commissioner of Agriculture, Patrick Hooker, who made the meeting possible.
He is truly one of the good guys.

Through the kindness of a friend I was able to attend a listening session on dairy issues in Syracuse yesterday. Though the matters discussed, such as who pays for the hauling of milk, volatile milk prices, de-pooling of organic milk leading to unfair price advantages for those outside the pool, raw milk sales and the rampage of some entities which are called farmer cooperatives, but which are really just more of the octopus arms of gigantic businesses engaged in making money off farmers were important, attendance was dismal. If there were half a dozen farmers there other than the presenters I would be surprised. However, there were plenty of activist groups, including the Consumer's Union there and lots of lawyers in suits eager to tell our state offcials that farmers should pay for hauling or else.

The low attendance was pretty disappointing, If we don't speak up for ourselves, who will? (Of course, chicken heart that I am, I didn't present, just took lots of notes and a few photos, with plans to say my piece in the Farm Side Friday.

John Bunting

I was delighted to hear John Bunting of the Milkweed speak. The five minutes allotted was way too short in his case, as he spoke of price manipulation on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which is far too little reported or discussed.

In the case of the guy from New York Dairy Foods, a so-called full-service dairy trade association......well in his case, it would have been nice if the moderators had held him to his five minutes. He launched into an impassioned tirade about why farmers better keep on paying their own hauling that had me and my companion ready to walk out. Vermont had the courage to enact legislation forcing processors to pay their own hauling. Then guys like this one and "cooperatives" like Agrimark convinced the legislature to postpone implementation until NY makes a decision. Now these guys are lobbying hard to make sure they get their way here.


I also got to meet Nate Wilson, a farmer from Chautauqua county (I thought I got a picture of Nate for you, but somehow I didn't). He has a cogent argument for why processors own the milk as soon as it is pumped out of the farm bulk tank, so they should be paying the freight from that point on. If you have time read his remarks in the Post Standard, linked to above. They make a lot more sense than the processors yelling that if they have to pay for hauling they won't pick up small farms. In NY at least most farms are small farms....and they can pass their costs on, where farmers are forced to eat them. I had found Nate's letter online when I was researching last week, forgot to bookmark it and couldn't find it again when I was working on the Farm Side so I was pretty tickled to meet him.

The meeting was stimulating, interesting and worth attending, even if the turnout was disappointing. Still it was good to come home......

Home, sweet home