47 Seconds of Emotion

There was something different today at the dairy rally in West Winfield, New York. It might have been the heat and humidity, the sunshine finally drying the hay or the fumes from the newly paved parking lot blowing on frustrated farmers that caused emotions to run higher than ever before. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen grown men and women exhibit so much pain in front of their peers and legislators. It’s a sad day when you see farmers who have worked their entire lives feeding a nation fight back tears because they can’t pay their bills and are losing hope for the next generation to take over. I could only think of how people have been screaming over the health care debate and wondered if folks really knew how their original health care providers (farmers) were getting treated. Without farmers making food, the health care situation is mute.

I should be hardened to this unfolding tragedy, since I am a survivor of the dairy war of 1991 when prices were in the toilet. My family survived to farm another day because we weren’t willing to take on additional debt to help society’s cheap food policy. An auction of one’s life work is not a pleasant thing when you consider it was over a price we can’t control and not weather related. We had already tried the “work off the farm and farm too” scenario which just led to more family stress and the kinds of things we see today. When you’re a farmer, you want to farm, not work in town. Can anyone really comprehend this outside of agriculture? It’s like telling a cabinet-maker to become a dishwasher.

I found my eyes welling up when St. Lawrence Co. Dairy Farmer, Bryan Gotham limped up to the podium on an artificial leg and then locked his prosthetic arm in place as he read his thoughts on being part of the silent majority, too proud to ask for help. “We are too connected to the land and our animals to get involved. So we make excuses of why we don’t get involved and we grow dependent like children on our co-ops and our structured leadership to take care of us. The facts of failure are staring us in the face and past leadership has definitely let us down. The status quo can not be defended anymore. How can you defend a milk pricing system too complicated to explain while making record profits for processors and watching dairy farmers wither on the vine?” exclaimed Bryan.

Bryan continued to hit on points and shared some dreams of his that most connected with. “I dream of urban and rural citizens respecting, appreciating and understanding the importance of all farms in their communities; I dream of an industry wide commitment to sustain small and medium size dairy farms for industry diversification and national food security. Deserts do not make good long term food security locations when aquifers can be drained; I dream of a full supply of future farmers; I dream for politicians standing up for the little guy and protecting us from unfair predatory market practices and I dream for a day when a dairy farmer only worries about going out of business because of bad luck, like weather, fire or poor business and management decisions.” He added that we all need to drop our egos and reach out of our comfort zones and do something every day that can make a difference in the milk price.

The comment period after his speech was one of sheer frustration aimed at legislators and processors to do something before it’s too late (a sentiment shared by many). Stories abounded about losing a life’s worth of equity, no future for the children and not qualifying for help because of too many assets. There were many tears, which to me, means that the situation is grave. I was a little taken back by the lack of forcefulness against the processors and retailers by farmers for not sharing the wealth and using the dreaded MPCs’. I found out later that some would be afraid of retribution for speaking out. This is stuff movies are made out of. Can things get any more complicated?

At this point in the process, emotion is invoking action. Farmers, Agri-businesses and consumers are working together better, but as the New York Commissioner of Agriculture, Pat Hooker stated, “It’s gonna be a long haul to change dairy policy.” On the evening news following the rally, the story only garnered about 47 seconds of air time which is up from 27 seconds.

So let me get this straight in my small mind. The death of the king of pop, the cash for clunkers program and figuring out the CEOs’ pay packages of bailed out companies gets more airtime than the loss of one more farm family. Ya know, after all this, a tractor-cade congesting D.C. or using milk as fertilizer doesn’t sound half bad. Published in Lancaster Farming 8/22/09