Copyright 2001 Star Tribune Star Tribune
(Minneapolis, MN)
December 10, 2001, Monday, Metro Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A
LENGTH:
696 words
HEADLINE: Senate to take up farm bill with reworked dairy plan; Higher price
supports are part of bill
BYLINE: Sarah
McKenzie; Staff Writer
DATELINE: Washington,
D.C.
BODY: From the beginning,
critics called it a "national milk tax," and they said it was a bad idea.
A proposed national dairy compact,
consumer groups said, would have increased the average price of a gallon of milk
by 26 cents.
Vermont legislators
proposed the compact, which would have set the price of milk at $14.25 per
hundred pounds, as a compromise to settle bitter regional rivalries that have
created a years-long impasse over dairy policy.
But after it drew a decidedly sour response on
Capitol Hill, legislators are ready to scrap the plan, which passed the Senate
Agriculture Committee last month with backing from Minnesota Democratic Sens.
Paul Wellstone and Mark Dayton.
Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the top-ranked
Democrat on a House Agriculture committee overseeing dairy issues, was one of
the stronger critics. He said the nation would have been "swamped with milk"
because such a high price support would encourage dairy farmers to
overproduce.
This week, when the full
Senate takes up a new farm bill, Senate leaders will offer a
revised, five-year $1.5 billion dairy plan targeted to smaller producers. Most
of Minnesota's farmers, who milk an average of 70 cows, would qualify for
subsidies.
Payments would be
triggered when the milk price falls below the average for the past five years,
said Seth Boffeli, a spokesman for the Senate Agriculture Committee. It would
also extend the current $9.90 price support per hundred pounds of milk.
Much to the disappointment of some in
Minnesota's dairy industry, the bill would continue to subsidize northeast dairy
farmers heavily for another 3 1/2 years. The producers would receive $500
million in transition payments under the plan, Boffeli said.
The payments would be a compromise to renewing the
Northeast Dairy Compact, a law that expired in September. Midwestern lawmakers
had opposed it for years, labeling it a "milk cartel."
On Friday, Dayton said negotiations on the dairy
section of the Senate farm bill are still as "fluid as milk,"
but added he's optimistic that the final plan will help the state's beleaguered
dairy industry, which has lost thousands of farms.
"There's no question that Minnesota dairy farmers
will come out ahead," Dayton said.
As
for the transition payments to farmers in the Northeast, Dayton said it would be
misleading to call the compromise a renewal of the expired Northeast Dairy
Compact. In late July, he said he would filibuster any proposal to expand the
compact.
Minnesota dairy farmer Bill
Dropik, who operates a farm with 44 cows near Alexandria, said he's doubtful the
Senate's plan would put him on a level playing field with farmers in other parts
of the country. The new agreement continues on the path of regional
price-fixing, he argued.
"My milk in
Minnesota should have the same value as dairy produced in Vermont or
California," Dropik said.
Assistant
Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Perry Aasness expressed similar
skepticism.
"We've got a federal
dairy system that benefits one region at the expense of another," he said.
Dairy farmers in the Northeast produce
about 17 percent of the nation's milk, but would receive about 25 percent of the
federal dollars under the dairy agreement, Aasness said.
But Delbert Mandelko, president of the Minnesota Milk
Producers Association, said he would welcome the $1.5 billion Senate proposal
and he plans to lobby the state's congressional delegation to support it.
Peterson, however, said he doubted that
the Senate's plan would "keep anybody in business that's in trouble" in
Minnesota. The House-passed farm bill doesn't include a
comprehensive dairy program.
Mandelko, 70, said it costs him $12.46 to produce a
hundred pounds of milk, making it difficult to get by when prices drop.
"We have to live on the difference,"
said Mandelko, who milks 100 cows at his farm near the southeastern Minnesota
town of Preston. "There's no money in it. Our young people are leaving
dairy."
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