Farmers, by nature, don’t like to complain. But this time, Tom Marston admits, is different.
Reflecting on the summer’s drought and recent political attention on the struggles of the dairy industry, the Pittsfield dairyman and school bus driver said this was the first time he’s seen the plight of farmers so prominent in the New Hampshire State House.
That change, Marston said, appears to be because he and other dairy farmers took their grumbling public.
“I believe we brought the whole thing to light and that’s what started it,” Marston said.
Those efforts will likely reach a climax Monday, when state legislators on the Dairy Farmers Task Force will meet in the Legislative Office building at 10 a.m.
Heading into the fourth and most likely final meeting, task force chair, Merrimack Republican and House Majority Leader Dick Hinch said he expects the committee to come up with some legislation to file to give dairy farmers relief.
He said both Weare Republican Rep. Neal Kurk and Republican Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley are working on formulas to provide funds to struggling dairies.
Earlier this fall, the state’s Milk Producers Emergency Relief Fund Board recommended giving $3.6 million to relieve dairies from feed losses.
“I’m thinking we’re probably going to see more than one proposal on Monday,” Hinch said. He noted there would likely be a more immediate, emergency relief measure to address the drought as well as something to be crafted into the next state budget in order to act as a safety net for dairies during hard times.
The Milk Producers Emergency Relief Fund, created in 2007 for this very purpose, has had no more than $1 in its coffers in those nine years. The relief fund board recommended the fund be kept between $2 million and $6 million at all times.
The issue first caught the attention of media and state officials after Department of Agriculture Commissioner Lorraine Merrill pointed out that 19 of 120 dairy farms had stopped shipping milk between Jan. 1 and August of this year.
But as the draft minutes from the most recent Dairy Farmers Task Force meeting on Nov. 15 show, New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services food protection administrator Colleen Smith presented what the state has on record for dairies in or out of business.
While 123 cow-only dairies were permitted in January 2016, that number was reduced to 115 by October 2016. Two of those farms, in the southern part of the state, stopped shipping milk in October alone.
With both set of numbers, the Dairy Farmers Task Force has mostly heard support for providing relief to dairy farms in order to preserve New Hampshire’s local food supply, rural character and agriculture economy.
Throughout the task force meetings, just two people have advocated for not providing the relief, saying dairy farmers, like other businesses, should plan for the worst.
Dairy advocates have pushed back on that argument, saying the milk market is not a free one, but determined by the federal government.
Both Hinch, and Marston, the Pittsfield farmer, said the drought was what really gave legs to this effort to examine New Hampshire’s dairy industry.
“I think the drought situation the farmers have been subjected to has been unprecedented,” Hinch said. “I think it was a very, very worthwhile process.”
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @elodie_reed.)