Farmers group sets dairy meetings

Progressive Agriculture Organization will sponsor two meetings for dairy farmers in Copenhagen and Hammond later this month to build grassroots support for a federal bill that would overhaul the milk industry.

"We're just a bunch of poor farmers trying to fix something," said Floyd R. Hall, a retired farmer from LaFargeville. "I have become a total activist."

ProAg, started in 1991 in Pennsylvania to establish fair farm prices, has about a dozen members in the north country but hopes to attract many others to the meetings. Speakers will explain a bill sponsored by Sens. Arlen Specter and Robert P. Casey Jr., Democrats, so that farmers push their political representatives to support it.

Provisions of the bill would link the price paid farmers to a national average cost of production, address the importation of milk protein concentrates, provide incentives for young farmers, and eliminate payments made by dairy farmers to manufacturers.

"Everybody will be treated equally in this bill," Mr. Hall said. "It is totally farmer-funded. It will not cost the federal government one cent."

The wide-ranging features of the bill have raised opposition from various cooperatives and manufacturers of milk products.

The bill is gaining ground, however, among individual farmers, who see it as a way to rescue themselves from a volatile pricing system and unfair competition from imports, St. Lawrence County farmer Bryan Gotham said.

"This bill will create a level playing field. We've got to get our politicians to listen," he said. "There's been a lot of people who have shot it down. They don't have any better ideas."

Mr. Gotham isn't a member of ProAg, but will speak of his support for the bill at both the Copenhagen and Hammond rallies.

"I think we've reached a critical stage," he said. "We have to make a decision if we want to sustain and maintain our food sovereignty."

CALLING ALL FARMERS

Dairy farmer rallies to explain the federal Milk Marketing Improvement Act of 2009 will be at 12:30 p.m. Oct. 23 in the Copenhagen Fire Hall and at 12:30 p.m. Oct. 24 in the cafeteria of Hammond Central School.