That’s the warning from the Progressive Agriculture Organization, or Pro-Ag, a Meshoppen, Pennsylvania-based association that represents the interests of dairy farmers in New York and Pennsylvania.
Pro-Ag Manager Arden Tewksbury met with some Twin Tiers dairy farmers Wednesday at the Corning American Legion post to discuss the challenging state of affairs, and to get the word out to the public that a broken federal milk pricing system is driving farmers out of business.
«Every day, farms we work with are having serious, serious problems keeping their heads above water,» Tewksbury said. «They are going to get rid of average family farms and going to big conglomerates. If we don’t do anything about this (milk price), farms all across the state will be out of business.»
The average New York dairy farm produces 2.7 million pounds of milk annually, according to Pro-Ag. That farmer will lose about $30,000 more this year than in 2009, which was also considered a bad year for milk producers.
The problem, according to Tewksbury and others, is that the price farmers get for their milk is set by the federal government, but that price has been going down while the cost of running farms has increased.
In March 2014, that price was $24.28 per hundredweight of milk. This year’s price is $14.80 per hundredweight.
But the cost of feed, utilities, wages, taxes and other expenses continue to climb, farmers complained.
«I’m one of three farms left in my area, where there used to be 27 farms,» said dairy farmer Rodney Mullen, of Rexville in Steuben County. «Now New York wants me to pay my help $15 an hour. My dad is 78, and he can’t even pull any income off the farm he started in 1956. We don’t want handouts. We just want a fair price for our milk.»
Farmer Robert Button, of Jasper, sold his 300 head of cattle to his sons, but worries about their future in the business.
«My father and I had it better than my sons have it. Reimbursement doesn’t even come close to covering the cost of production,» Button said. «At the same time, processing plants are showing record profits. It’s a losing battle.»
The U.S. Department of Agriculture can take emergency steps to help keep farmers afloat, but ultimately, it will be up to Congress to change the system to make it more fair to farmers, Tewksbury said.
«The price of milk is the same across the country, but every farmer has a different cost of production,» he said. «If the formula was based on the internal cost of production, every dairy farmer would have a chance to stay in business. Today, he doesn’t.»
Source: StarGazette