Making the first comment for the state’s new Dairy Farmers Task Force on Tuesday, Weare Republican state Rep. Neal Kurk questioned the entire premise of the meeting.
“It’s not clear to me,” he said, “why we’re focusing on the dairy industry.”
Kurk said that while this year’s drought has clearly affected dairies – many farms have experienced crop losses, reducing the feed available for their animals – he knew there were other farmers, and other industries, also struggling.
Task force member Rep. Bob Haefner, the House Environment and Agriculture Committee chairman, and audience member Rep. Paul Henle, a Concord Democrat, both made the point that dairies are in a particularly difficult situation given that they don’t operate in the free market but under federally set milk prices. Those prices dropped about 40 percent between 2014 and 2016.
Haefner has said numerous times in the past that the gap between feed costs and low milk prices hasn’t been adequately covered by the federal margin protection program created in 2014. Just 13 of the 100 or so dairies in New Hampshire received payments this past year.
And while other New England states fund programs to protect the dairy industry, New Hampshire does not. The Milk Producers Emergency Relief Fund has so far been empty since its creation in 2008.
“I think a dairy farm can withstand the cyclical nature of prices going down, and can deal with drought,” Haefner said. “But not both.”
Kurk retorted, “Are you suggesting it’s the duty of the state to subsidize failing industries?”
This question was the central focus of the task force’s first meeting. It came on the heels of the Milk Producers Emergency Relief Fund Board recommending the Legislature appropriate a one-time $3.6 million grant to dairy farmers affected by the drought.
The relief fund board also suggested the Legislature approve Gov. Maggie Hassan’s suggestion to appropriate $2 million to the relief fund for both 2018 and 2019, and to keep that fund between $2 million and $6 million.
Furthermore, the board wrote in its 2016 report that long-term solutions, including help from the congressional delegation, are also in order.
In assessing the relief fund board’s first recommendation – the $3.6 million – the Dairy Farmers Task Force wondered whether this was a fair or even effective solution.
Americans For Prosperity New Hampshire State Director Greg Moore didn’t think so.
“Proposing a taxpayer-funded bailout for the industry is bad policy,” he said. “When you give an industry a bailout, it doesn’t respond to market forces – it just keeps doing what it’s doing.”
Referring to the 2006 and 2007 one-time funds the state gave to dairy farmers, Moore added, “I will assure you if we provide a bailout here, they’re going to be back in three years, five years.”
He noted that landscapers had a “brutal” year of business, as have ski resorts. “No one’s talking about them,” Moore said.
Rob Johnson, the policy director for the New Hampshire Farm Bureau Federation, responded that the dairy industry isn’t the same as other businesses.
“They’re producing local food – that’s the difference,” he said.
He said, however, that other local food producers are feeling left out of the drought disaster relief conversation.
“You’re sending a message to non-dairy folks – it’s a slap in the face,” Johnson said. “We would ask you to look at it as disaster assistance, and with disaster assistance, we would ask that you look at it comprehensively.”
In response, some task force members suggested working with Johnson to draw up and propose some sort of state-level program to help all farmers weather price and climate fluctuations year to year.
In the short-term, Johnson said that assistance was needed to maintain the existing dairies in New Hampshire and the farm infrastructure – equipment stores, veterinarians, other farm service providers – they support.
“You as a Legislature have to determine how important is it to maintain that infrastructure and that local food supply here,” Johnson said.
When state Sen. Martha Fuller-Clark asked what would actually happen if nothing was done for dairy farmers this year, Johnson said that this infrastructure would likely take the biggest hit as milk production consolidated to larger farms.
“I think you’d see a continuation of the current trend,” he said, referring to the continual decline in numbers – though not necessarily production – at New Hampshire dairies. Since Jan. 1, 19 of the state’s 120 licensed dairies have since stopped shipping milk.
Kurk circled around to one of his original questions about whether the state should support what he termed a “failing” industry, though both Johnson and State Veterinarian Stephen Crawford said they wouldn’t characterize it that way.
Crawford, attending on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food, said that given the high cost of water used in producing and shipping milk far distances, and the continued consumption of the product, regional dairying is likely here to stay.
“I don’t think the dairy industry – the commercial shipment of milk – will ever be gone,” he said.
The next Dairy Farmers Task Force meeting will be held Tuesday at 9:15 a.m. The task force’s report, including recommendations for action, is due Nov. 4.
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @elodie_reed.)