Even as the snow barreled out of the sky last week, Maine’s dairy farmers were up in the early hours of the morning, firing up their generators and moving snow, all to get the cows milked, ensuring Maine’s food supply.
This is not only a labor of love for many farmers, but the bare minimum of a dairy farmer’s day. We milk our cows, once, twice or for some three times a day, every day, 365 days a year, regardless of the weather.
Our farms have weathered more than just the increasing effects of climate change on our seasonal patterns. We have weathered low prices set by a federal pricing system that few people actually understand. We have weathered increasing costs due to inflation and high costs of everything in Maine, due to our location in the country. We have weathered labor shortages and supply-chain issues. Yet, every day, we continue to wake up and get the cows milked, to be sure our neighbors and fellow Mainers have food on their table.
The people of Maine have long recognized the importance of our dairy farms and their interdependence within our rural communities. This recognition has come in the form of the Dairy Stabilization Program which, for the last 20-plus years, has provided some stability for our farms in a system of constantly varying federal pricing. The stabilization program uses cost of production data, researched every three years, that is then sent to the Legislature to decide the level of support for the program. This program is a lifeline for our farms, and it has almost consistently been funded at a level below current cost of production.
Last session in the Legislature, the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee allocated funds to expedite the Cost of Production Study, to be sure they could adequately increase the program. The study, once returned, offered a harsh reality: Our farms continue to receive prices far below cost of production, and the funds needed increase the program to the full amount needed to achieve short-run break-even cost of milk production on our farms would be too high a price to pay.
In good faith, members of the Maine Dairy Industry Association worked and negotiated with the Agriculture Conservation and Forestry Committee to determine an increase to the program that would be meaningful to farmers and realistic for the budget. Our farms were willing to take a 75% cut to achieve an increase of 25% to the program numbers, forgoing the option of a large one-time payment, in order to bolster the program. Gov. Janet Mills offered her support and included this increase in her budget change package after the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry voted the measure out unanimously.
The majority party on the appropriations committee then made the decision to go against the governor’s plan, scrap the months of work that went into the planning and only offer an increase of 10%, citing the stakeholder group formed by the Legislature as the reason for the minimal increase. The unfortunate reality of the situation is the 25% increase was not enough, but as a community we recognized the importance of working within the system in place and the need to compromise. We were met with an even more disappointing decision by the committee.
Maine is losing farms at an alarming rate. The realities of the business, pricing challenges and the absolute commitment dairy farming takes is too much for many to reckon with. In our corner of the country, we have 146 dairy farms left. Every one of them plays an important role in our food security, self reliance and climate goals. We offer jobs in our rural communities, and opportunities for other small businesses to exist in those communities. Every dollar that comes onto our farms goes right back out. Many of us don’t have savings accounts, let alone money for retirement. The land we work and soil we tend is the basis of our life’s work, an investment not always realized in our lifetime, but made in good faith for the generations to follow.
Collectively, we must invest in this industry before it is too late. These farms, this land and our food security is worth protecting.
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