VOL. 28 No. 1 Dairymen Inc. reports productive year BY JOYCE BUPP Staff Correspondent r : TIMONIUM, Md. - Several hundred members and.'guests of the Middle Atlantic division of Dairymen, Inc., turned out last Saturday for their first annual meeting held at the Hunt Valley Fomerly Maryland Milk Producers,'the IJSGO'mem bers merged last August with Fred G. Butler was re-elected to the presidency of the board of Middle Atlantic division of Dairymen Inc. during a reorganization session following the annual meeting last Saturday. Returned to the vice presidency was Samuel B. Foard, Jr, Aerial spraying under fire BY SHEILA MILLER _ HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania '\|aral Electric Association held its first meeting concerning the use of herbicides by utilities in main taining rights-of-way on Thursday, with ten of the twelve cooperative managers who use this method of control attending. What precipitated this meeting? General Manager William Matson summed it up in one wprd concern.” "As you know,” said Matson, considerable public attention has recently been focused on the use of herbicides -by utilities to maintain their rights-of-way. This attention has created much fear, misun derstanding, and hysteria among the general public, most of which is unfounded. "The safe use of herbicides and pesticides has become an im portant activity in our nation today. . . . American agricnlture could not be as productive as it is if chemicals similar to those used by utilities were not available." r £n talking about the public concern and what the Rural Electric Cooperative needs to do, Matson said their association decided ‘*we all would be better off knowing what’s going on than stonewalling discussion,” referring to other electric com panies who have refused to comment on the public outcry on herbicide use. Program participants con- Five Sections i Dairymen, Inc., to become one of 14- regional divisions of the production and marketing cooperative with more than 8,000 members, headquartered L~. - Louisville, Kentucky. . .-In a full morning of business, members heard reports from their leadership, studied financial -figures, enjoyed film clips of ad vertising for their new Ultra High Temperature milk, and wrapped tinually referred to an incident which occurred in Fayette County •this year. The utility company involved was West Penn Power. One representative of DOW Chemical who was participating in Thursday’s meeting commented that the utility company didn’t cooperate with its customers in its aerial spraying of utility lines. And as a result, a judge banned all spraying until next year. DOW’s Walter Besh stated that late last spring, Evergreen Helicopter was contracted by West Penn to spray its utility nghts-of way with an herbicide, picloram (manufactured by DOW), to control underbrush .and trees. Evergreen then contacted every person who would have property along the right-of-way in order to secure their permission. There was one objector, said Besh, who received a visit from a West Penn Power right-of-way technician who told the landowner the power company “didn’t need his permission to spray.” What resulted from tlus “tactful” ap proach was the objector turning to the media and an ensuing con troversy pitted the utility against the public. Hearings on the judge’s earlier decision to ban spraying, with only a two-week lift late in the summer, will continue next month. The outcome of these hearings will affect utility company policies, said But - some - Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 6,1982 During first annual meeting up the session with a lively, sometimes heated, question answer period. Division president Fred Butler of Innwood, West Virginia, cited changing government attitudes as part of the dairy farm over production problem. While production continues to rise, consumer demand overall is stagnant, and Butler warned that ‘the supply-demand must be brought closer together. He called for legislators and other government officials to have the foresight to develop methods to help bring production more in line, suggesting a restructured pricing system, curbing of imports, ex panded exports and less imitation and substitute dairy products, to help reduce Commodity Credit Corporation purchases. Producers must assume their share of the responsibility of surplus too,' division manager Ralph Strode warned the Dairymen members. ‘ “if dairy farmers don’t get their act together to solve the surplus problem, wewill deserve whatever Congress metes out,” he advised, adding that “the storm warning has been out for two years.” Calling the inflexible parity rate of 80 percent the “product of our own seeds,” Stroek challenged dairymen to ’’produce for the stomach, not for storage, and lift .things have already changed, he said, "to give the consumer a chance to avoid involuntary ex posure” to herbicide spraying, such as public notification, and allowing a buffer zone when spraying. Penn State’s Herbert Cole, Jr. was in attendance at Thursday’s meeting. The professor of plant pathology and chairman of the state’s pesticides advisory board cautioned those in the audience that pesticide regulations usually are the outfall of incidents which (Turn to Page A3l) ITS OUR 27th YEART This week’s publication is Lancaster Farming’s anniversary issue. We’ve seen a lot of changes inside each week’s pages since the newspaper was founded Nov, 4, 1955. Our growth and continued success have been possible only through the in terest of you, btir readers and advertisers. We thank you for your past and future support so that we may continue to serve you by bringing the best m ur {S | te the helping hand of government that smothers independence.” Strock praised Dairymen Inc. for its willingness to take risks toward providing a better first class market in upcoming years, noting that the “landscape is cluttered with the corpses of dairy cooperatives and industries whose vision lias been dubbed the ‘now’ generation.” In 1978, Dairymen purchased the Flav-O-Rich milk product packaging and marketing business. While two million dollars was lost the first year, operations the four years since have made $2O million. More recently, Strock noted. Dairymen has taken another risk in pioneering the production and marketing of Ultra High Tem- LCCD launches erosion survey in county BY DONNA TOMMELLEO LANCASTER The Lancaster County Conservation District, at their monthly meeting Wednesday, announced the start of an Erosion and Sedimentation Evaluation project throughout Lancaster County, said LCCD Administrator - Thomas Johnston. The project, which will begin with field inspections next month, is geared to evaluate the ef fectiveness of the state’s Clean Streams Law, instituted in 1972. “We want to see how well the laws are working,” Johnston explained. The Id-year-old statute requires all eartlimoving operations, in cluding plowing and tilling for agriculture, to have- a plan for controlling erosion. A recent state study indicated that conservation plans are needed on 45 percent of the farms in the Susquehanna basin. - Under the direction of resource conservationist Timothy $7.50 per year penature milk, or sterile milk, with a shell life of several months. Initial marketing of the UHT product in Georgia and Florida was so successful that advertising (Turn to Page Al 9) f ThMmTSeries Page ElO Breneisen, the survey will include 10 municipalities and 20 randomly picked ' farms. In addition, Breneisen' noted he also wiu evaluate housing developments and construction sites. The project, handed down from the Department of Environmental Resources, has been adopted by six other counties in Pennsylvania, Johnston said. The District will conduct an Erosion and Sedimentation workshop on Jan. 27, at the Farm and Home Center. The one-day seminar said Johnston is designed for providing information to engineers and municipal officials. In other District news, the group reaffirmed its opposition to the proposed Narvon hazardous waste dump. A recent LCCD report states: “The LCCD is not con vinced that landfilling is the best way of dealing with the hazardous waste problem. We feel that in most cases, the generator of the hazardous waste should take steps to recycle the hazardous con stituents, (which in many cases are quite valuable) or render them harmless through other processes.” The District charged that current scientific knowledge about hazardous waste degradation is imperfect and that many such wastes in disposal facilities will not degrade to a point where they are no longer hazardous. Additional District business slated several important dates on the LCCD calendar. A Citizen Planning/Workshop, sponsored by the County Planning Commission is scheduled for Nov. 11,16,23 and 30 at7:3o p.m. on the sixth floor of the Court House. A Conservation Tillage Conference will take place on March 15 at the Farm and Home Center. And the LCCD Annual Banquet will be held on Thursday, Marph the. Blue. Ball, Fire Hall.
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