In 2021, 11 organic dairy farms in Vermont shut down. The following year, 18 more came. And the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont thinks that another 28 farms will close this year.
This information, which was put together by a state dairy task force and recently given to legislators, is why the association wants $9.2 million to go to organic dairy farmers in the budget for this year.
During a joint meeting of the House and Senate agriculture committees last Thursday, association leaders asked lawmakers for the one-time payment. That amount would make up for the money organic farmers have lost because of changing dairy prices, which, according to the association, have only gotten more crazy over the past few years.
The $9.2 million would be the same as giving all organic producers $5 per hundredweight of their goods in 2022. A hundredweight is the same as 100 pounds of milk and is used in dairy stores.
At the hearing, the people who supported the request did not say how the money would be spent.
In the past few years, many organic dairy farms in Vermont have had to shut down. According to the Organic Farmers Association, farmers got $8 to $10 per hundredweight less than what it cost them to make that weight.
Jen Miller, who is in charge of farm services for the group, said in an interview that this trend, along with rising costs for feed, fuel, and labour since 2021, has made it hard for many farmers to pay their bills and loan payments.
Miller told lawmakers that payments to organic dairy farms started getting less money in 2017. Miller said in committee that farmers lost $2 to $3 per hundredweight that year, and prices kept going down until 2020.
Last year, drought, inflation, rising production costs, and problems in the supply chain made things worse for farmers.
Miller said in an interview, “We’re getting to the point where the best managers can’t make more money or cut costs any more than they already have over the past five years.”
Miller said that farm managers have tried to stay afloat by reducing the size of their herds and increasing the amount of milk they get from each cow, but they are running out of ways to do so.
In an interview, Maddie Kempner, the policy director of the Organic Farming Association, said, “The loss of these farms to the state is a loss for the economy, but it’s also a loss of culture, a way of life, and a huge loss for climate resilience.”
The Vermont Dairy Task Force found that when 11 farms closed in 2021, the state lost more than $41.5 million in economic activity. In 2022, 18 farms shut down, which cost another $67.9 million.
In addition to asking the state for $9.2 million this session, people who support organic farms want the federal government to make a version of the Dairy Margin Coverage Program for organic dairy farms.
Farmers can sign up for insurance from the government that helps them deal with risks through the programme. When the difference between the national price of milk and the average cost of feed falls below a certain level, the government gives money to farms.
The programme doesn’t take into account how much organic feed costs or how much organic milk costs. This means that when only organic farms are having trouble, the programme can’t help.
In an interview, Sen. Bobby Starr, D-Essex/Orleans, who is in charge of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, said that it’s not easy to figure out what to do.
Starr said that his committee could look into making a programme that would start when the price of milk fell below a certain level. When that happens, companies that buy raw milk to make other things will have to pay the difference between what it costs to make and what it sells for on the market.
Starr also brought up the idea of putting together a board of farmers, consumers, and people who process milk to help figure out who can pay what when prices change. It would be like the Northeast Dairy Compact Commission, which was in place from 1997 to 2001. Congress set up the commission, which gave the New England states the power to decide how much fluid dairy products, like drinking milk, cost.
Starr said, “I hear more from farmers about how low their prices are than from consumers about how high their prices are.”
