Wolff’s Agenda Includes Changes to Dairy Pricing

CHRIS TORRES
Staff Writer

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Changes in dairy pricing and alternative energy were among the topics discussed during a press forum Wednesday with Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff and members of the media.

With a dairy industry that is struggling to keep up with higher feed prices, Wolff laid out some of the initiatives he said will be part of the state’s Farm Bill recommendations.

Among them is eliminating the federal price support program for milk and instead, setting a price floor on milk. The federal dairy price support program, which was enacted by the government more than 70 years ago, requires the Commodity Credit Corporation, a USDA entity, to keep the price of milk used for manufactured products at $9.90 per hundredweight by purchasing non-fat dry milk, butter, and cheese at established prices.

But Wolff said the program is outdated and doesn’t address current issues farmers face including production costs and higher feed prices. He suggested a price floor that would provide a safety net for farmers in the form of direct payments. He said a program like this would encourage manufacturers to align themselves with inventory to meet growing milk product demand in Asian nations, which Wolff projects will grow by 2 percent each year and is being driven by increased demand for powdered and whey milk. “The U.S. is in an excellent position to provide that product,” he said.

Wolff also suggested a price floor on Class III milk that would be set by taking a look at the national average of the milk/feed cost ratio and fuel costs.

He also suggested a dairy revenue insurance program, which would be similar to the federal crop insurance program that takes into account a farmer’s five-year average.

Farm Bill
Increased funding for specialty crops and conservation programs were items Wolff touched on when discussing the Farm Bill.

Wolff said farmers participating in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) should have the option of growing crops that could be used towards cellulosic ethanol production. Through CRP, farmers receive annual rental payments if they convert “highly erodible land” to vegetative cover such as native grasses, trees, or wildlife plantings.

Wolff also said any acres going into the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) should go exclusively towards riparian buffers because of hardships some state farmers have felt because of the program.

On the issue of organic farming in the Farm Bill, Wolff suggested more money go towards helping farmers in the transition phase. “There is nothing there for farms transitioning into it, “ he said. “We think it’s a very fast growing sector of agriculture.”

Budget
Wolff said he doesn’t expect any major changes to the state’s proposed $274 million agriculture budget this year, which is expected to be finalized this summer. He called the budget one of the better ones he has seen, even though it calls for major cuts to crop insurance, conservation district funding and research.

The proposed budget is actually bigger than last year’s, even though most of the increases come from horse industry line items.

Some farmers may be hit hard by things such as rising premiums in crop insurance because of government cuts. But Wolff said other programs such as Gov. Ed Rendell’s alternative energy initiatives will ultimately help out farmers. “I think in the long run, farmers will be profitable,” he said.

While some townships in the state have adopted ordinances to make it difficult for wind farms and other forms of alternative energy to come in, Wolff said he supports the creation of a “model ordinance” that would lay out science-based specifications on setbacks, noise, potential pollution problems, and other factors. “Hopefully people will become a little more friendly with that,” he said.