CHENANGO COUNTY – Wednesday U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said upstate New York’s “diverse” agricultural economy is on an upswing and, compared to past legislation, “needs and deserves” better representation in the upcoming 2007 Farm Bill.
Tuesday he met with 24 state agricultural representatives in Washington at a New York farm summit to develop an agenda specific to upstate agriculture, which he said is mainly guided by the small farmer.
“Small farms are a lynch pin to a way of life in upstate,” Schumer said.
The proposal focuses on expanding crop insurance benefits and extending milk price protections for dairy farmers, along with increasing funding for waste energy initiatives, marketing programs and farmland conservation efforts.
“Past farm bills only favored certain districts,” Schumer said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters, referring to a small number of large agricultural operations on the West Coast and in the Midwest. “We’ve put together an aggressive agenda that protects the primary interests of New York farmers.”
The 2002 Farm Bill expires Sept. 30, and Schumer said legislative discussions on the new bill have already begun, with expectations of its passage later this year.
The senator offered statistics from New York state Agriculture and Markets that say farm receipts were up $470 million between 1999 and 2005. The Southern Tier was up $60 million, with Chenango County being the highest milk producer in the region.
However, despite the increase in sales, low milk prices, high production costs, and severe flood damage have squeezed many local farmers to the brink.
“Farmers are purchasing retail and selling wholesale,” said Chenango County Farm Bureau President Bradd Vickers. “They are being squeezed at the middle.”
Vickers said the senator’s call in the agenda for increased funding for biofuels research and development, particularly cellulose ethanol (energy produced from waste farm products), is a step in the right direction toward creating more cleaner, value-added and profitable products for farmers and consumers.
“I think he (Schumer) is on the right path,” Vickers said. “There is a lot of work to be done.
Vickers hopes the senator will go even further and support the farm bureau’s “25 x 25” policy, which seeks to have agriculture produce 25 percent of the nation’s fuel supply by 2025.
“We hope to see the funding that will make this program fly,” he said.
If adopted, Schumer’s agenda would restore the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) Program, which also expires Sept. 30. MILC pays farmers when the Class I milk price falls below $16.94 per hundredweight for up to 2.4 million pounds of the milk they produce. Schumer hopes to double the cap from 2.4 to 4.8 million. He is also lobbying for passage of the previously shot-down National Dairy Equity Act, which would place a price floor on class I milk.
“The NDEA would be a home run,” Schumer said.
The plan would provide tax incentives for start-up alternative energy plants, funding to put farm products in at least 100 more schools in every state, small farm marketing assistance, crop insurance benefits for fruits and vegetable producers and funds to preserve farm lands among sprawling suburban areas. The senator also supports efforts for forestry conservation and the agJOBS act of 2007, which would help farmers hire registered migrant workers instead of illegal aliens.
New York is the third largest dairy state in the U.S., producing 11.7 billion pounds of milk at a value of $1.91 billion, Agriculture and Markets reports.