Faced with processors paying less than $10 per hundredweight for their milk, and with production cost at close to $20, working dairy farmers and their supporters are putting forward proposals to gain some say in the pricing system and win support from consumers.

The meeting was called by the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture and the Maryland Sierra Club. Chris Bedford of the national Sierra Club's Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations Organizing Committee warned that one-half of Pennsylvania's dairy farms are on the verge of failure and could go under this year.

"Food production is being industrialized with greater use of genetically modified organisms, increasing use of antibiotics and other chemicals, and factory techniques. The family farmer is being turned into a factory worker, a wage worker on the land," he said. "The concentration of waste from these factory farms also threatens our water quality."

Three of the 15 dairy farmers present also spoke. George Donnon, a 32-year-old dairy farmer from Rising Sun, Maryland, explained that the major corporations control milk pricing through the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and daily futures trading. Donnon advocated labeling products "with their country of origin so people can decide for themselves" what to buy.

Pointing to a sheet of paper in his hand, he added that farmers "need Congress to put into action 'Option USA,' because if we keep going the way we are now, thousands of farmers will be forced off the land. Then it will be corporate farms milking the government for tax dollars."

The "Option USA" plan envisions a 36-member committee composed of one dairy farmer, consumer, and processing company representative from each of the current 12 milk marketing areas in the United States. This committee would set minimum milk prices each quarter based on production, consumption, exports, imports, and cost of production.

Additionally, a graduated premium would be paid that favors smaller producers over large ones. Another provision would require that the established minimum price be paid to the producer for all milk marketed in the U.S., even if it is imported.

Ken Marshall, who runs a dairy farm with 75 milk cows and 250 acres for feed crops, summed up the situation many farmers are facing. "My family has had this farm for five generations, since 1840. But now all that work and sweat to build it up is slipping through my fingers like sand. But we're not asking for handouts. Just the right to make a living without being forced off the land. Now we all have to begin getting active ourselves, because no else will do it for us."

The next action is set to coincide with hearings in Harrisburg of the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board on March 2.  
 
 
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