CHENANGO COUNTY – The 2007 Farm Bill that passed the House last week boosts fruit and vegetable production, calls for land conservation efforts, and cuts back subsidies to affluent farmers whose critics say have taken the lion’s share of $25 billion in federal funding since 2002.
Locally, creating a federal milk pricing system that factors in high production costs and implements supply controls would also be welcomed provisions in the legislation, says Sherburne dairy farmer Peter Lathrop.
“I hope they find a way to make it so they can control the change in production,” said Lathrop, explaining that when prices – which were historically low this time last year – do go up, the tendency is for farmers to increase production, flooding the supply and lowering the price. “If the price of milk goes up, we can lock it in at that number of pounds of production.”
While it lists no concrete changes in milk pricing or supply caps, the legislation, which does not yet have a version in the Senate, calls for a review of the federal milk order system to make sure competitiveness and costs of production are being considered. Currently, prices are issued monthly by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under a system that has been in place since the Great Depression.
“The bill definitely benefits the Northeast more than it has in years past,” said Chenango County Farm Bureau President Bradd Vickers.
Historically dominated by Midwest interests, Vickers says the legislation’s five-year extension on the Milk Income Loss Contract program – which reimburses farmers when milk prices fall below a certain rate – is a plus for local farmers, as are its nutritional programs that will not only bring healthier food to schools and stores, but create more market share for producers.
“There’s still a need to stabilize dairy prices, there’s a real need to go further with that,” Vickers said. “In our industry we are price takers, not price setters.”
The bill does create price supports for cheddar cheese, butter, and nonfat dry milk.
“With approximately 6,800 dairy farmers, New York ranks third in milk production nationwide. Family farms in the 24th district need a safety net when prices fall and costs increase,” said Congressman Michael Arcuri, who submitted several amendments during the farm bill debate, in a prepared statement. “I strongly supported extending the MILC program in this Farm Bill and offered these amendments to ask that rising input prices are into account when determining milk support prices to help local farms struggling with rising fuel and feed costs.”
Local farmers have said the MILC program helps, but it wouldn’t be necessary if producers were paid based on market factors.
“We don’t need to be paid out of taxpayers pockets,” South New Berlin farmer Ken Dibbell said in a recent interview. “We need to get paid by the market.”
Arcuri offered two amendments to the bill that specifically require that cost of production – high fuel and feed prices – be factored in to the USDA’s system, but they were withdrawn and tabled for later conference discussion with Senate members, the Congressman said.
Based on what he’s seen, Lathrop believes the discussion in Washington has been positive, but says the biggest issue has yet to be resolved.
“Right now it doesn’t look like there is a real strong safety net proposal in terms of production costs,” he said. “A lot could change before it gets there (President Bush). Hopefully it’s going to have a positive impact on everybody.”
President Bush has said he would veto the bill as it stands because of a an amendment that would tax U.S. earning on foreign companies to support nutrition programs. 
Overall, the bill reduces federal farm spending by $20 billion.
Here’s what else the farm bill does:
• Invests more than $1.5 billion in programs benefiting the fruit and vegetable industry.
• Provides $4.3 billion for conservation programs aimed at protecting environmentally sensitive land and preserving farm and ranchland.
• The Farm Bill increases funding for Food Stamps and nutrition programs by $4.2 billion over five years.
• Reduces funding caps so people making more than $1 million a year can’t collect conservation and farm program payments.
• The USDA is also directed to investigate which estates have been fraudulently receiving farm subsidiaries payments. A study found the U.S. Department of Agriculture distributed $1.1 billion to the estates of deceased farmers in the last seven years.
While the House version looks to curb giving money to the rich farmers, some critics say it hasn’t gone far enough, considering the income cap is still $1 million.
“If Washington really wants to help struggling farmers, as the subsidies are promoted as doing,” says Brian M. Riedl, an expert on the federal budget with The Heritage Foundation, a policy group in Washington, “it would be far cheaper just to hand every full-time farmer $40,000 a year.”
Vickers praised the bill’s push for alternative energy funding, which is in-line with the Farm Bureau’s national “25/25” campaign calling for 25 percent of the nation’s energy to be produced by farmers by the year 2025.

e-mail: mmcguire@evesun.com