By Dan McLean
Free Press Staff Writer

Souring milk prices have prompted state officials and Vermont's congressional delegation to launch a volley of pleas in Washington, D.C., for federal assistance to dairy farmers.

State Agriculture Secretary Roger Allbee hand-delivered his testimony to a House Agriculture subcommittee in Washington on Wednesday, asking for immediate help for the beleaguered dairy industry. Allbee also met with Kathleen Merrigan, the deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and members of the state's congressional delegation.

"I think it is safe to say they understand the urgency of the situation, and they understand the current pricing system is antiquated," Allbee said of his meeting with the USDA, which was also attended by the agriculture commissioners from New York and Pennsylvania. No action is imminent, Allbee cautioned, and any government plan "could still be shy" of making sure Vermont dairy farmers break even.

Along with Vermont's congressional delegation, Allbee said he is pushing for short-term relief for milk suppliers and a commitment to reform the complex milk pricing system.

The cost of production, he said, is $17 to $18 per hundredweight. Milk producers were paid $11.28 per hundredweight delivered to Middlebury last month. That's down from $18.91 in June 2008 -- a 40 percent decline, according to state data; prices are blended averages. A hundredweight, the common unit for milk production, is 100 pounds, or 11.6 gallons, of milk.

"In the long term, there needs to be a way to balance the supply and demand of milk. ... We can't have these deep dips," Allbee said of the recent volatility in pricing. One of the plans being considered, he said, is for the federal government to buy powdered milk to drive up prices paid to farmers.

Allbee also co-signed a letter Wednesday to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, along a with a half-dozen counterparts throughout the region, to emphasize the "current economic crisis in the dairy industry." More than 145,000 jobs are directly supported by the dairy industry in the Northeast, the letter said.

Allbee's written testimony will be added to the record of the July 14 hearing held before the House Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry.

"With the decline in milk prices, the average size Vermont dairy farm is receiving over $100,000 less income this year," or $116 million less income that will circulate the state's economy when multiplied for the 1,046 dairy farms in the states, Allbee's testimony said.

Some Vermont dairy farmers are diversifying, but that may not be able to help them survive the collapse in milk pricing, Allbee said. He was contacted by a Vermonter with a 65-cow dairy farm who is raising 500 turkeys, producing 1,000 gallons of maple syrup annually and harvesting trees for lumber and pulp wood.

A chorus of Vermont officials has spoken of the mounting problems facing the state's dairy farmers in recent weeks. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., testified before the congressional subcommittee last week calling for higher milk subsidies. Vermont has lost 250 dairy farms in the past five years, Welch said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., appealed to Vilsack last week to address the pricing problem. Last week, Sanders called low milk prices "the worst crisis I can remember" for the industry. Monday, Sanders invited CEO of Dean Foods Inc. to Vermont to help find a remedy to the fall in milk prices. Dean Foods processes roughly 70 percent of the dairy market in New England, Sanders said.

Allbee flew to Washington with his deputy, David Lane, on the eve of the first meeting of the Vermont Milk Commission since December.

The commission considered creating a surcharge on milk sold in Vermont last year to aid the state's dairy farmers, but ultimately tabled the issue because of concerns that the surcharge could violate the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, Allbee said. That's why a federal approach, being advocated by reformers, is crucial, he said.