VOL 27 No. 37
N.E. ag secretaries
hit dairy issues
BY SHEILA MILLER
HERSHEY - The future of the
Northeastern states 9 agriculture,
especially the dairy' industry’s
ouUook,werc key topics this week
during the Northeastern
Association of State Departments
of Agriculture annual meeting held
here at Hotel Hershey.
Pennsylvania's Agriculture
Secretary Penrose Hallowell, who
served as the Association’s
president for the past year, hosted
the four-day “meeting of minds”
with ag secretaries and com
missioners from Connecticut,
Delaware, .Maine, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New
York, and Vermont.
As panelists participated in
discussions, on issues facing the
York zoning board
■»<
„ - 4
rules for “small farm”
BY JOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
DELTA- The zoning hearing
board of Peach Bottom Township,
York County has rated in favor of
two “small farm” landowners who
challenged sections of the town
ship’s agriculture land preser
vation ordinances.
Lowell Williams, R 3 Delta, and
Philip Nicholson, R 2 Delta, had
appealed to the Sharing board
about an ordinance that went into
effect last August. That regulation
prohibited the sale of a plot of
prime farmland if either the
buyer’s or seller’s acreage, after
the sale, totalled less than 50 acres.
Both petitioners wish to expand
their farm sizes with the purchase
of a few acres of neighboring
property.
Five public hearings were held
from February through May, with
challengers charging that the
ordinances allowed large farms to
grow larger, but prohibited small
Imports threaten apple market
BY DEBBIE KOONTZ
LANCASTER The Penn
sylvania apple Juice industry may -
be headed.for some hard times
from drastically reduced sales if
imports from foreign countries
such as Argentina aren’t stopped .
soon.
This is the sentiment being
expressed from various producers
in Adams County the state’s
largest producer of apples, and the
country’s largest concentrated
apple processing county (due
largely to the presence of three of
the country’s leading apple
processors—Musselmans, Knouse
Foods, and Duffy Mott).
Argentina has been singled out
as the major concern among apple
growers because of their rate of
Three Sections
agricultural industry, Uie dairy
situation surfaced as a prime
concern. U.S. House Agriculture
Committee Chairman E. Kika de
la Garza admitted the national
dairy program “needs reform” as
he addressed a capacity crowd of
farmers, agribusiness leaders, and
legislators - during. f Tuesday
evening’s banquet.
He stated the current dairy
surplus situation confronting the
legislators in Washington D.C. only
represents a 30-day supply which
some of his peers feel is too small
in the event of a disaster. The cost
of the national price support
program, he said, would not be of
concern if the federal government
was not having budget problems.
(Turn to Page A 18)
acreage owners from expanding
their holdings through acquisitions
of a few acres. (Lancaster Far
ming had detailed the April 20
hearing in the issue of May 1,1982.)
In their July decision, "the
hearing board wrote the. opinion
that “...said sections of the Peach
Bottom Township Zoning Or
dinance are declared- to be ar
bitrary, unreasonable and un
constitutional.”
Peach Bottom Township’s board
of supervisors has 30 days in which
to appeal the hearing board’s
ruling. They plan a public meeting
on July 28 at the township building
to determine if township residents
support an appeal or a rewrite of
the disputed sections.
In a 22-page document, the
hearing board outlined their ex
tensive findings of fact after the
five meetings. They cited the
success of several small farms
already operating in York County*
(Turn to Page A 36)
sales into the United States. In U.S.
dollars, last year, the Argentine
value of apple juice concentrate
exceeded $27 million 45 percent
of the total dollar market for
imported apple juice and 49 per
cent of the total quantity of im
ported apple Juice. This figure,
from 1981, is up 7.6 percent from
1980.
Guy Donaldson, apple producer
and chairman of PACMA, a
marketing and bargaining affiliate
of Pennsylvania Farmers
Association, attributed this high
import figure to Argentina’s
“tremendous inflation rate,”
because “they'll do anything to get
currency into their country. They
need to export all they can.”
Argentina has been quoted by
Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, July 17,1982
Agriculture secretaries and commissioners
from the Northeast met in Hershey this week
to share ideas and propose solutions to
problems facing the farm industry. Penn
sylvania Secretary of Agriculture Penrose
Hallowed, front right, hosted the summer
conference. Pictured with Hallowed are: from
Tobacco exemption passes
BY DICK ANGLESTEIN
WASHINGTON - Action in the
nation’s capital this week brought
a collective sigh of relief from a lot
of Lancaster County tobacco
growers.
All that Maryland tobacco that
has been growing by leaps and
bounds in county fields during the
recent hot weather is now legal and
free of quota restrictions.
An exemption to permit the
U.S. officials as having had an
inflation rate anywhere from 140
percent to as much as 400 percent
last year.
According to Donaldson, the
amount of concentrate coming into
the country translates into so
many raw apples. If the con
centrate wasn’t available, then
■processors would have to buy
apples locally, thus increasing
sales for Adams County producers,
as well as for Franklin, Lehigh,
Berks, and York counties’
producers four other top
producers in apples.
Though on the surface the
problem seems to be a simple
matter of supporting American
(Turn to Page A3B)
Type 32 now “legal” in Pa,
growing of Type 32 tobacco in
Pennsylvania free of quota
regulations, spearheaded by
Congressman Bob Walker, was
part of the 1982 Tobacco Program
Act that passed the Senate and was
due to be signed by President
Reagan late this week.
It had been approved by the
House previously.
The local growing of Maryland
tobacco, which has been in
creasing due primarily to more
favorable marketing conditions,
previously faced an uncertain
future when severe restrictions
were put on the growing of non
quota tobacco, such as Type 32, m
any state with tobacco quotas.
While Lancaster County growers
traditionally have rejected any
quotas, a small 12-acre allotment
for Type 53 tobacco remains under
quota in the northern part of the
state.
Now, under the new exemption,
the non-quota Type 32 can be
grown free of quota restrictions in
states, including Pennsylvania,
with 20 acres or less of quota
tobacco.
The effort to include the
exemption in the tobacco bill and
gain its approval began in earnest
following a meeting held by
Congressman Walker with USDA
officials and growers at Terre Hill
earlier in the year.
bottom, Robert Lonnsberry, lowa, national
president of the ag secretaries’ association;
Howard Townsend, N.H.; George Dunsmore,
Vt; Leonard Krogh, Ct; Donald Lynch; Del.;
Stewart Smith, Me.; Roger Barber, N.Y.;
Arthur Bronw, N. J.
The restrictions that could affect
local growers only came to light
after plants were already in their
seedbeds for the current growing
season.
At Walker’s urging. Rep.
Charles Rose, of North Carolina,
chairman of the House Sub
committee on Tobacco and
Peanuts, agreed to put the 20-acre
exemption in the Tobaccc
Program Act.
The restrictions against the
growing of Maryland tobacco in
quota states originally were placed
in the 1981 Agriculture Alt by two
members of the Maryland
Congressional delegation to
counteract an increase in the
growing of Type 32, primarily w
burley states, which have quotas
for that type of tobacco.
Maryland and burley tobaccc
are largely interchangeable in the
production of cigarettes. Some
burley growers had been moving tc
Maryland tobacco in an attempt tc
get around the quotas.
In Lancaster County, recent
moves to Maryland tobacco have
been primarily economic in
nature.
While Maryland tobacco hat
been selling readily for about 1.30 s
pound, Pennsylvania Type 4. 1
$7.50 per year
(Turn to Page A 37)