Agricultural issues look much different in a barn than in the ornate conference rooms of the nation”™s capitol.
So U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand traveled to Orange County”™s Black Dirt region Aug. 26 and spent more than an hour listening to farmers tell her how federal policy affects their lives.?Farmers and their families far outnumbered reporters at the Pawelski Farm in Goshen as about 100 people gathered in the barn temporarily converted to a meeting hall. She was joined by Jerry Cosgrove, the deputy commissioner of the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. ?The listening tour is specifically aimed at helping write the federal Farm Bill, legislation passed every five years that greatly influences agriculture policy across the nation. The next farm bill will be passed in 2012.
Gillibrand is the first senator from New York state in more than 40 years to be a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. ?Warwick Town Supervisor Michael Sweeton, who owns The General”™s Garden nursery, asked Gillibrand to seek ways to separate the anxiety over immigration policy from the need for agricultural labor.
“We need a workable guest worker program for agriculture,” Sweeton said. “We need a champion in Washington to cut through all the nonsense.”?The farmers who were present voiced agreement and one told of farm families who had hired the same worker for 20 seasons in a row, only to learn that those individuals were suddenly not allowed entry, thus forcing a scramble for labor.
Gillibrand advocated a “holistic approach” that focuses on keeping immigrant families together. “We need to right-size immigration,” she said, suggesting working on a rational system that first determines how many visas are needed “and then build a system that works.”?Tunis Sweetman, a dairy farmer from Warwick, warned Gillibrand, “We have an industry that will not survive without a complete overhaul” of pricing mechanisms related to milk production and distribution.
Sweetman said that some national groups that claim to represent all dairy farmers do not allow input from actual dairy farmers. Over the last 30 years that he has been in business, the farmers”™ share of the consumer dollar spent on milk shrank from 50 cents to about 22 cents. ?He said that farmers, contrary to protests by national organizations, would willingly explore the idea of supply management to keep prices at levels that are profitable for farmers. Sweetman said that rather than use an archaic pricing system, officials should “find out what consumers are paying and work their way backwards from there” in setting prices.
Gillibrand engaged in a policy discussion with Sweetman and summarized her position. Â “We”™re going to think outside the box on dairy pricing. I don”™t think we should use the current framework.”
Allowing farmers to garner income from energy production was another issue raised both by Gillibrand and farmers, who could use wind power, solar arrays and biofuels to produce energy. “It is a huge economic engine waiting to be turned on,” she said.
Noting New York farmers”™ national leadership in land stewardship and conservation programs, there were calls for funding to ensure that federal mandates on land preservation did not break the bank of farmers. There were also calls to reimburse farmers, perhaps through tax breaks, for undertaking voluntary stewardship efforts.
