Vol. 73/No. 23      June 15, 2009

Joel Greeno, a Wisconsin farmer and leader of Family Farm Defenders, criticized the notion circulated by representatives of the giant food companies that “there are too many farmers and too much food.”

“Kraft made profits last year,” Greeno told the crowd. “We need to stand together as farmers to protest, and stand with fellow farmers around the world.”

Chris Petersen, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said, “I’ve been in this fight for 20 years. I’m here today because I care. I’ve seen it, I’ve heard it—the suicides, the pain. Enough is enough! Some say what’s good for big ag is good for independent farmers. Well, it isn’t.”

“Do you think we should have a price for milk that covers your cost of production?” asked Anthony Loken, a dairy farmer from Minnesota, speaking from a flatbed truck serving as a stage. The crowd gathered in the Livestock Exchange parking lot responded with a resounding, “Yes!”

In the past year of economic contraction, the price farmers receive for raw milk has plummeted 50 percent, while their costs of production have fallen much less. “My income has been slashed in half and I don’t know why,” said Jerry Harvey, an organizer of the protest who has 70 cows on his Iowa farm. “We need solidarity. We want dairy farmers to come together.”

Last year farmers received about $20 per hundredweight (100 pounds) for raw milk. Farmers at the rally explained they are getting between $10 and $11 per hundredweight today.

Speakers and participants at the event presented a range of ideas about the source of the problem and possible solutions. Many, like Arden Tewksbury, a former farmer and manager of the Progressive Agriculture Organization, spoke in support of a bill before the U.S. Senate that claims to set milk prices based on the farmers’ cost of production. Tewksbury has been traveling around the country speaking out for the Casey-Specter Bill, as it is known. He recently addressed a rally of 250 dairy farmers in West Winfield, New York.  
 
Farmers’ incomes slashed
A petition was circulated calling on U.S. secretary of agriculture Thomas Vilsack to use his powers to set an emergency minimum price for the milk that farmers produce. Many farmers pointed out that while dairy prices in the grocery store have dropped slightly, farmers’ incomes have been slashed.

So-called cooperatives, like the Dairy Farmers of America and Land O’Lakes, came in for intense criticism. These “co-ops” claim to be run by and serve the dairy farmers themselves. Some began as actual small farmer cooperatives, but today they are huge capitalist food manufacturing and marketing companies that reap profits by keeping prices paid to farmers low.

Deborah Windecker, one of four women dairy farmers who came from New York State, pointed the finger at “imports from places like China that don’t have the same food safety standards as we do.” She and several other speakers claimed that the influx of a milk protein by-product from other countries is leading to a lessening in demand for U.S. farmers’ raw milk to make cheese and other dairy products.

During the open microphone period Wisconsin farmer Randy Jasper said, “I have a little problem blaming imports. Farmers in all countries are in the same boat.” He pointed to the example of thousands of farmers in Europe who recently carried out rallies and tractorcades in Berlin, Brussels, and across France to protest low milk prices. “Blame the corporations,” he told the crowd.  
 
 
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