NEWS from

The Vermont Congressional Delegation

Fri., Sept. 27, 2002

USDA, Finally, Says It Is ALMOST Ready
To Begin Payments Under New National Dairy Program

(FRIDAY) – After vigorous complaints from the Vermont Congressional Delegation about how – and how long – the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is taking to begin payments under the new national dairy program, a USDA official told the delegation members Friday that the agency expects to begin issuing partial payments on Oct. 15.  Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman had told Sen. Patrick Leahy at a hearing last week she expected the payments to begin sometime in October.  The Vermont state director of USDA’s Farm Service Agency Friday was able to be more specific.

The startup of payments has been anxiously awaited by Vermont’s dairy farmers, who are facing the lowest milk prices in ten years.  Prices plummeted by nearly $4 per hundredweight of milk last December and have fallen virtually each month since then.  Milk prices have been this low only three times in the last 25 years.  Many producers also are facing higher feed costs due to both drought and flooding and to higher feed corn prices.

The national dairy program was championed by the Vermont Congressional Delegation – Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Jim Jeffords, and Rep. Bernie Sanders – and was included in the Farm Bill over the objections of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other Administration officials.  The bill became  law on May 13. 

The law required USDA to begin enrolling producers in the program in July and to issue the first payments to producers by Oct. 1.  USDA failed to begin the signup on time and did not allow producers to enroll until Aug. 13. 

In August Leahy, Jeffords and Sanders wrote to Agriculture Secretary Veneman, urging her to avoid further delays and to do all possible to meet the Oct. 1 deadline for making payments.  Last week Leahy grilled Veneman on USDA’s handling of the new dairy program during a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing.  Veneman said USDA would not likely meet the Oct. 1 deadline, but she assured Leahy that she would do everything possible to make the payments sometime in October.

Leahy said:  “The Administration has been slow-walking putting the dairy program into action.  Farmers don’t have the time that USDA is wasting.  Prices have fallen so low that the public pays more for bottled water than a farmer gets for his milk, and this latest promise is one that USDA had better keep.”

Jeffords said:  “As milk prices continue to cast a dark cloud over the dairy industry, today’s announcement is a ray of light.  This is welcome news for our farmers, who have been struggling to make ends meet.  Perhaps this news will allow farmers to open their mail without the fear that they will just see more bills.”

Sanders said:  “At a time when milk prices are disastrously low, it is good news that USDA is finally responding to the pressure that the delegation has been putting on them to get this much-needed money out to farmers as quickly as possible.  Even so, we must continue working to solve the root problems that are pushing dairy prices so low and driving family farmers off the land.”

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