Dairy Farmers

The General Assembly has taken a baby step toward bringing Maryland in line with a handful of other East Coast states that have passed legislation to subsidize their beleaguered dairy farmers. State lawmakers have given preliminary approval to the creation of the Maryland Dairy Farmer Emergency Trust Fund, but with one giant drawback -- the bill lacks funding. The trust fund bill was designed to create a $15 million pot of money that the state agriculture secretary could distribute to dairy farmers when milk prices fell below the farmers' cost of production.

Milk prices paid to Carroll dairy farmers began to rise in late spring and should continue to climb this summer and remain strong in the fall, one economist said.Prices per 100 pounds are $1 to $1.50 higher this year than last year, said John W. Wysong, an economist with the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension Service in College Park.Milk is measured in 100-pound units, equaling 11.6 gallons.New Windsor dairy farmer Jason Myers said the price his cooperative paid him for milk produced this month was 40 cents higher per hundred pounds than for milk produced in May.He predicted the price will continue to increase until August, when he hopes it will reach $13.90 per hundred pounds, or $1 more than May's price.

The Maryland dairy industry may weather the worst drought in 30 years, but farmers in Carroll County and elsewhere cannot survive falling prices for milk, their main source of income, according to dairy officials.Many producers report monthly losses of as much as $6,000 on milk shipped to processors, who attribute the drop to market fluctuations. With beef prices also dropping, farmers cannot rely on cattle sales to offset losses."A lot of dairy farmers would sell out, except the value of their cattle is so low," said Myron L. Wilhide, president of the Maryland Dairy Industry Association.

Seven years ago, when Maryland dairy farmers were fighting for the right to join a regional dairy compact to stem their steadily declining numbers, they were bitterly opposed by another major segment of the industry: the milk processors. Things haven't changed much today. Dairy farms still are disappearing in alarming numbers in Maryland. They are going out of business at a pace nearly twice the rate of the nation as a whole, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In rough numbers, Maryland had about 4,000 dairy farms in 1970.

WALKERSVILLE - Dairy farmers from three states registered strong opposition yesterday to the proposed merger of the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative with three other co-ops, including Land O' Lakes Inc., to form the nation's second-largest milk marketing enterprise. The proposed merger was announced earlier in the month. It would combine the Maryland and Virginia co-op, based in Reston, Va., with Land O' Lakes of Arden Hills, Minn.; Lone Star Milk Producers Inc. of Wind- thorst, Texas; and Arkansas Dairy Cooperative Association of Damascus, Ark. The merger would create a co-op that operates in 19 states and have sales of about $1 billion annually.

When Karen and Lou Hobson moved to their 19th-century farmhouse, the basement was a dirt-floored cellar and the eggs the previous owners had cooked for breakfast that morning were still on the stove.On the way to their new home in the northwestern corner of Carroll County, one of Mrs. Hobson's prized Queen Anne's chairs bounced from the back of a friend's truck and into the traffic on Route 140, its delicately carved legs scraping the asphalt.Before the couple could finish unpacking that night, they had 25 cows to milk -- and they'd never milked cows before.

IN AN ERA of deregulation that has helped spark this nation's long economic boom, Maryland legislators are thinking of heading in the opposite direction: giving the state permission to join a regional cartel, dominated by New England dairy farmers, with the intent of inflating the price of milk. The result could be a roughly 20-cent rise in what Maryland consumers pay, with the prospect for even bigger rises in the years ahead.It is price-fixing, plain and simple. A multistate commission would have the same power to set milk prices that OPEC nations enjoy in rigging the price of oil.Who would be harmed?

The extra-fat paychecks of poultry farmers and dairymen last year were not enough to offset big losses by grain growers, and the state ended 1998 with a 3 percent decline in net farm income, according to preliminary estimates released yesterday by the Maryland Agricultural Statistics Service.Total farm income in Maryland fell $8.2 million last year to $265.4 million.It was the second consecutive year that Maryland farmers have been hurt by low commodity prices and drought. Farm income last year was 26 percent lower than in 1996.

EASTON -- Maryland agriculture exports, which have been growing faster than winter wheat during the rainy season in recent years, will likely benefit next year from the continued strong demand for food and grain overseas, an agriculture economist with the University of Maryland said yesterday.Speaking at the 1998 Agriculture Outlook and Policy Conference, Bruce L. Gardner, former assistant secretary of agriculture in the Bush administration, said that U.S. farm exports should grow by about 15 percent next year.

Maryland dairy farmers are in line for a pay raise, thanks to action taken yesterday by the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board.The board, which sets the minimum prices of milk at the farm, processor and retail levels in Pennsylvania, voted unanimously to increase the Class 1 (drinking milk) price by 40 cents a hundredweight, or 3.4 cents a gallon.Milk cooperatives serving Maryland had already agreed to pay state farmers the higher price if it was approved in Pennsylvania, according to Myron L. Wilhide, interim president of the Maryland Dairy Industry Association.