AlB—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, October 22,1983
Grange plans egg trip to Washington
HARRISBURG Pennsylvania
State Grange Master Charles
Wismer, Jr. today announced the
Pennsylvania State Grange is
sponsoring a bus trip to
Washington, D.C. in order to -
“personally convey the plight of
the Pennsylvania poultry fanner
to our Congressional Delegation,
and stress the serious need for
immediate and comprehensive
legislation to save the family
poultry farmer from extinction.’’
The bus trip will take place on
Nov. 2, from Gettysburg in Adams
County (the 2nd top egg producing
county in the state) to Washington,
D.C. where the meeting with state
Congressional Delegates is
scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00
p.m. including a luncheon at 12:15
p.m. in room B-340 of the Rayburn
Office Building.
Several representatives of
Pennsylvania’s independent egg
producers have previously met in
September with state officials to
present their “blueprint for sur
vival” in a depressed egg market.
Producers from Adams, Lan
caster, York and Cumberland
Counties-major egg producing
counties in the state-cited profit
losses due to foreign and domestic
corporate investors, high feed
prices brought on by the Payment-
In-Kind program and the drought,
and high utility rates.
In Washington on Nov. 2, specific
solutions will be urged by egg
producers, including: an im
mediate stop to foreign and cor-
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porate investment groups and
others using this as a tax shelter in
agriculture; the addition of eggs
and poultry to the Packers and
Stockyards Act, which will provide
payment protections for poultry
growers; support for the inclusion
of eggs in the 1937 Farm Com
modities Agreement Act; creation
of a national poultry sup
ply/management program; the
release of government surplus
grain for feed; and the lowering of
interest rates for loans to family
egg producers with under 200,000
birds.
Family egg producers are ex
periencing their fourth consecutive
year of losses, according to Dolly
Sterner, a spokesperson for the egg
producers and a Grange member.
A poultry farmer, she noted that 40
percent of the state’s 4,700 in
dependent egg producers went out
of business last year. “Producers
are losing up to six cents on every
dozen of eggs they produce,’’
Sterner said.
Sterner also ,said that in
dependents are losing their
markets in part to large foreign
and domestic investors who
continue to expand in a surplus egg
market. Foreign investors now
own up to 25 percent of all laying
birds in Pennsylvania compared to
15 percent a year ago. The
poultrymen feel that these million
bird operations are expanding to
the detriment of the small family
farmers, who will eventually be
squeezed out of the market. In
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Adams County, foreign-owned
laying hens far outnumber hens
owned by family producers, and
foreign competition is the number
one contributor to the Adams
County poultryman’s financial
crunch, Sterner asserts.
Wismer said the Grange is
working with the State Assembly
on controlling further foreign
expansion, as well as on in
troducing legislation requiring
prompt payment by processors to
Pennsylvania poultry farmers. It
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joining Eari Newcomer, presi jncaster Farmers Assn., in cutting the rib
bon for opening of Farm-City Week observance at Park City shopping mall are, from the
left. Ken Brandt, state representative; Congressman Bob Walker; Bob Magel, advertis
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is expected that U.S. Senator Arlen
Specter will introduce similiar
legislation on the latter, this
session of Congress.
“Pennsylvania is a state that is
traditionally ranked third in the
nation in egg production, and it
generated a market value in eggs
of nearly $2Bl million in 1962;
therefore, it is vital that we protect
the future of Pennsylvania’s
family egg farmers,” Wismer
commented.
The Grange expects a group of
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about 40 emissaries on the
Washington trip including Grange
representatives, independent
poultry farmers from across the
state, and other farm
organizations representatives.
“We hope to be duly received
and listened to by Senator’s Arlen
Specter (R) and John Heinz (R),
as wed as the state’s Congressional
Representatives, and we expect a
good response for our efforts in
Washington on November 2nd,”
Wismer stated.
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