VOL 26 N*. 51 AI pioneer wins intemat’l acclaim BY DONNA TOMMELLEO UNIVERSITY PARK - For his pionneering worir in theTteld of artificial insemination, Dr. John O. Itlmquist, - professor of dairy phisiology at Penn State, was recently named the 1981 winner of the Wolf Foundation Prize in Agriculture, which includes a gift of $lOO,OOO. Circuit court rules ■“v * on Dairymen, Inc. case BVSHEILA MILLER CINCINNATI, Ohio - In a recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, a team of judges reversed a, lower court ruling made previously which .cleared - Dairymen, Inc. of . nearly all an ulrustchargesbrougbt against the ft cooperative by.the United States r Departments Justice. ‘ The case was decided and filed on September-. 21, 1961, here, and has becp retarned to theFedend Distitit Louisville, Ken tucky, for further evaluation as directed bythe Circuit Court. According to Harrisburg -at torney Manrin-Beshore, the case was brought by the Government against. Mid-American and AMPI, in 1973. The concern of the Government was that these cooperatives were using their size and position to an advantage to ‘‘encourage” cooperation. ' Although both Mid-American and -AMPI settled the charges by Tobacco crop shows more acres, less yield BY DICKANGLESTEIN LANCASTER An increase in acreage planted but an expected drop in the yield per acre should inetty well balance out this year’s tobacco crop with last year’s harvest. The lighter crop, which should be significantly below last year’s yield of approximately a ton per acre, is just one of the charac teristics noted in fids year’scrop, samples of winch were judged in the past few weeks at several Lancaster County fairs. Another distinguishing factor noted At the fairs was the sizable increase in shed'burn or rot in many of the samples judged. At some of _the fairs half of the samples fell apart'npon handling. And as the crop now hangs in the ventilated sheds throughout the county and the temperatures turn colder and colder, growers’ at tention will begin to turn to price - if and when the buyers decide to get active. . From all preliminary' in dications, the price may hold “It was a complete shock,” said a bumble Almquist. “There are so many in agriculture equally deserving of more deserving.” “The international award is sort of the Nobel Prize in agriculture,” said Samuel Smith, dean of the College of Agriculture.' “More than |3l million is bring saved annually in the United States consent decree, an - agreement reached with -the Justice Depart-, ment in which the co-opsadmitted to no guil£ Dairymen, Inc. took the Government to task. In D.l.’s case, the issuecentered around their use of 91 committed supply and full supply contracts with milk handlers and customers. In order to -these agreements, D.l. threatened to, or did, withholdmilk supplies'from the buyer, according to -Besbore.. .-The contracts . also contained “price equalization - charges’ ’ which the Court of Appeals found “penalized processors who pur chased less than 9& percent of their milk from D.l. " “The- government charges that D.l.’s use oftbese contracts, along witb tfts .acquisitions of private processing pfants.use of exclusive contracts with milk haulers, and “pool-loading” practices were part of an attempt to monopolize Grade . A milk marketing- in the southeastern United States and ~ (Torn to Page A 33) pretty dose to what was paid last year - an average of about 85 cents a pound for the non-speciality leaf that goes primarily into the chewing market. Two factors point to the ex pectation that price will not vary too much from last year. First, buyers were quite active in Wisconsin last year and bought a lot of “second-grade” leaf at the same price that _was paid for the better quality' tobacetTTiere, in Lancaster County. This means file tobacco com panies have quite a bit of tobacco instocage. - Also, by paying , the “going price” instead, of discounting- the second-grade crop, the tobacco companies sent a wrong signal to' the Wisconsin growers. In effect, the buyers told them we need your tobacco; when in fact they didn’t. So.insteadof cutting acreage this yeah-the Wisconsin growers < planted just as manyas ever. And, of course here in Lancaster County, the acreage jumped by 10 (TurntoPageAW) Lancaster fanala»,S«tßrd«y, fetoNr 17, IMI through use of Dr. Almquist's technique of adding antibiotics to bull semen, a practice now adopted worldwide,” Smith reported. By adding penicillin and later other- antibiotics to semen, Almquist found he could' retard bacteria^rowth-found in semen. The end result, Said Almquist, was a dramatic increase in fertility. Through Almquist’s research, said Smith, it is possible to produce' 250,000 offspring , from one" genetically superiorbuU.- In Pennsylvania today, more - than 75 percent of all'dairy cows ' are , bred artificially. Smith estimated that the income from . offspring of A.I. cows could total as much as $6OO million. “The value . created with Almquist’s work is twice the total budget of the college of agriculture in the lastlOyears, ’’'Smith said. .Almquist has also been credited with developing a system / for coloring semen used in breed identification. Another main area of research beep his .work- in developing and’ lmprovi!igjla v ' method of freezing and thawing bull semen. Equally; long as his list of achievements are those- that (Turn to Page A3S) Interest rates devour income BY SHEILA MILLER and ' DEBBIE KBONTZ LANCASTER “The farm sector of the U.S. economy Is in a crisis, a crisis unlike any we have seen, for- decades,” according to Richard Pottorff, author of The Crisis hrU.S. Agriculture. In his report which described the U.S. economy as “teetering on the brink of a depression reminiscent of the 19305,'’ Potteroff said, “the outlook for farm income and profitability has gone beyond dismal and would have to be ter med catastrophic.” This depressing forecast has been the topic of discussion among fanners, agri-business owners and government leaders during recent weds. - In a September 1961 report from the USDA’s Economic Research Service, net farm income showed a decline from |32.7 billion in 1979 to $19.9 billion in i 960 a decrease of 39percent. They eiteda sharp drop Inside This Week’s... . To learn "how a Lehigh County dairyman has Jived up to a 24- year-old pledge to help his children farm, turn to A 26; There were lots of winners from southeastern Pennsylvania at the state 4-H horse show last weekend. Tor more details, 5ee....816. ; Adams County held their annual Farm-City week this past' week. If you missed it, turn to page . DIO. John O. Aimquist is one of three recipients of the in ternetjpnaf 1981 Woff Foundation Prize In Agriculture. The prestigious honor recognizesthe Penft State researcher’*''’'' valuable work In the field of artificial insemination. in prices in the first part of the yeaiv and drought reduced crop production in the last half of the year as factors. According to EKS’s Allen Smith, “Returns to operators decreased from 126.6 billion in 1979 to |13.2 billion in i 960. Cash income from fanning also decreased, from $38.4 billion to |32A billion in 1990. 'Factor payments < returns to the factors employed in farm production land, labor'; and capital) dropped from 953-2 billion in1979t0944.3bi11i0n in 1960. On the flip side of the coin, ex penses incurred by farmers continued up by the tune of 10 percent, from 9119.2 billion in 1979 to 913017 billion in 1960. Main culprits in this economic im- cost of fuel, fertilizer, and interest charges. As if jbese statistics are not enough to make even the most stout-hearted cash in their farms, just last week the Farmers Home s7.SoParYwr Administration announced 'new .and higher interest rates on several of its loan programs. USDA’s' Dwight O. Calhoun, acting associate administrator of FmHA, said higher rates are required for community facility, water and waste disposal, emergency farm and limited resource form loans. The changes were included ip, the budget reconciliation bill passed by Congress just before the August recess. Farm operating loans rose from the old rate of seven percent to the new rate of 1i.5 percent. This new rate applies for the first three (Turn to Page A 34) AAh rIRV Cumberland Dairymen, 826; Bedford DHIA, D 25; Blair DHIA, DM; Cumberland DHIA, D2l; Huntingdon DHIA, D 23; Lebanon DHIA, DIB; Mifflin DHIA, DM. Ump m| Yyyih Homestead Notes. B 2; Home on the Range, B 6; Kid’s Komer, B 12; FWS news, Bll; 4-H news, B 14; Adams- leaders, lanoaster Leaders, 824; Lebanon leaders, 824; Manbeim Farm Queen, B 19; Children’s Zoo,' B 14; Unionville Fair, 834; Eastern National Ex position, B3L Cilya* • Editorials, A 10; Now is the time, A 10; Ida’s Notebook; BU; Ladies, have you heard?, B 9; Joyce Bupp’s column, B3S;' Fanning’s Future, C 4; Dairy Business,' Dl9; Farm Talk,D3o.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers