Dairy Farmers

As their numbers dwindle, Harford County dairy farmers are turning to related lines of business, including the production and sale of ice cream, to enhance their chances of survival. According to C. John Sullivan, agricultural coordinator with the county's Office of Economic Development, four of the 30 remaining dairy farms in the county have moved into the production of ice cream or are in the process of moving into the business. In most cases, the farmers are assisted in their new venture by a one-of-a-kind county agricultural grant program that takes some of the financial risk out of their expansions.

After a summer of drought and a sharp dip in the price they get for milk, dairy farmers are hoping -- in some cases desperately -- that the autumn market will help make up their losses. "It's a roller coaster, and the way milk is priced these days, it will always be a roller coaster," said Joe Schwartzbeck, a Union Bridge farmer. "We never know what we're getting." After summer losses, he's looking forward to the prices paid for this month through January, which are better than the rest of the year because milk and dairy product consumption goes up. "The kids are in school" and drinking milk more regularly, Schwartzbeck said.

Farmers attending today's annual meeting of the Maryland Dairy Industry Association in Westminster should have a little more money in their pockets this year. "Milk prices are at a record high," said Myron Wilhide, a Carroll County farmer who milks 205 cows and is president of the Maryland Dairy Industry Association. According to a computer printout, the average price of milk sold at the farm so far this year is nearly $15 per hundredweight. Wilhide's milk payment last month topped $18.50.

As their numbers dwindle, Harford County dairy farmers are turning to related lines of business, including the production and sale of ice cream, to enhance their chances of survival. According to C. John Sullivan, agricultural coordinator with the county's Office of Economic Development, four of the 30 remaining dairy farms in the county have moved into the production of ice cream or are in the process of moving into the business. In most cases, the farmers are assisted in their new venture by a one-of-a-kind county agricultural grant program that takes some of the financial risk out of their expansions.

Maryland dairy farmers are seeking immediate federal assistance as a relentless drought continues to destroy fields and milk prices plummet.They might have to wait two more weeks while federal officials review statistics and assess damage before possibly designating Western Maryland a disaster area and making low-interest farm loans available."

The four-year struggle by Maryland farmers to become part of a regional dairy compact is over, but state dairymen are not complaining. The Senate included an alternative to dairy compacts in the version of the new national farm bill it passed Wednesday. The proposal would make $500 million in subsidies available to dairy farmers in 12 Northern states, including Maryland, when the farm price of Class 1 (drinking) milk drops below $16.94 per hundredweight. "It looks good, it has my hopes up," said Carroll County dairy farmer Myron Wilhide.

As state farmers prepare for the new planting season, the outlook is bright for poultry, livestock, and greenhouse and nursery farmers, but grain farmers and dairy farmers will continue to struggle. "There are some trouble spots, but 2002 could be a good year for state farmers," said state Agriculture Secretary Hagner R. Mister. "That is providing we get some rain." For the second consecutive year, corn literally piled up on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The 30- to 40-foot mountains of grain were evidence of another bumper harvest for state grain farmers but also an indication of troubled times in the year ahead.

DRINK YOUR way to a cleaner bay. Buy Chesapeake Milk.Assuming a test-marketing project begins next month as planned, consumers can choose to directly reward dairy farmers who go the extra step toward a bay-friendly operation.Here's how it will work, according to project sponsors that include Pennsylvania State University, the Rodale Institute and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation."Chesapeake Milk" will be sold in half-gallon cartons at retailers across Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Northern Virginia who agree to carry it.It will cost a nickel extra, and it is no different from any other milk in the grocery display case.

RANDOLPH, Vt. - Over the knoll from Perry Hodgdon's place, a one-time farm has become a housing development. Hodgdon's own 100-acre dairy farm was once four separate ones, and may itself cease operations or get absorbed into another farm next year when Hodgdon hopes to retire. Family dairies, with their weathered barns and Ben-and-Jerry cows grazing on gentle green terrain, retain their hold on New England's physical and emotional landscape, even as they find it ever harder to stay afloat in the current tide toward larger-scale agriculture.

Maryland dairy farmers have shifted direction in their search for a solution to the financial problems that have forced more than 40 percent of their colleagues out of business since 1988.Myron L. Wilhide, president of the Maryland Dairy Industry Association, told dairymen attending the group's first meeting in Frederick yesterday that it will seek General Assembly approval for the state to become a member of an emerging Southern states milk compact.The compact would link 15 states, stretching from Maryland to Texas, into a marketing group that would set the farm price of milk at a level that would make milking cows more profitable.