fMARIG
VOL 30 No. 19
This Qlendell daughter received the top bid of $3150 at the
relief sale.
World Relief Sale
raises $63,000
BYWFMIYWEHR
LANCASTER Through the
generosity of many area dairy
farmers, a sum of $63,000 was
raised Thursday at the World
Relief Heifer Sale. All of the sale
proceeds will go to the Mennomte
Central Committee for distribution
to the hungry and needy around the
world
All of the 74 head of cattle and
various other auction items that
were sold were donated by area
farmers. As the first heifer entered
the sale ring, Edgar Stoesz,
associate executive secretary of
Nat’l RCWP Committee reviews
Rural Clean Water Project here
BY JACK HUBLEY
LANCASTER U.S. Depart
ment of Agriculture and En
vironmental Protection Agency
officials making up the Rural
Clean Water Program’s National
Coordinating Committee came to
Lancaster County this week to
review the county’s RCWP project.
Convening at Lancaster’s
Conestoga Resort Inn on Wed
nesday and Thursday, the group
included local, state and federal
officials, as well as Extension
Service personnel.
A pilot program aimed at
demonstrating the effectiveness of
agricultural Best Management
'Practices, the Conestoga Head-
Waters Rural Clean Water
Program encompasses 110,000
acres and 1,250 farms in the nor
theastern corner of Lancaster
bounty and extending into Berks
jCouiity. Farmers contracting with
*>e Agricultural Stabilization and
'Onservation Service (ASCS), the
‘gency responsible for ad
ministrating the program, receive
Weral cost-share funds to im
minent a water quality plan
tofted by the Soil Conservation
*vn e (SCS).
(Turn to Page A 26)
Five Sections
the Mennomte Central Committee,
thanked both donors and buyers
lor their generosity.
Remarking on the “sad condition
of agriculture around the world,”
Stoesz stated that even American
agriculture is now in a state of
crisis. “This neglect of agriculture
is something we will all regret,” he
remarked.
To bring home his point, Stoesz
quoted from a speech by William
Jennings Bryan, given at the
Democratic National Convention
in 1896. Said Bryan, "Burn down
(Turn to Page A 35)
"I don't regret that we’ve gone with this, and we look
forward to some answers coming out of it,” said Aaron
Stauffer while addressing members of local, state and
national coordinating committees during a tour of the
Stauffer farm's water monitoring facilities.
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 16,1985
Farm Bureau adds its ideas
to the Farm Bill debate
Compiled from news reports
WASHINGTON - The American
Farm Bureau has injected a long
awaited Farm Bill proposal of its
own into the melting pot of
arguments and counter-arguments
that will determine farm policy for
years to come.
The Bureau, the nation’s largest
general farm organization, has
proposed that dairy price supports
and commodity loans for major
export crops be tied to formulas
that depend on market prices
rather than arbitrary political
numbers.
Officials at the U.S. Department
of Agriculture said the department
and the Reagan Administration
were not prepared to comment on
the Farm Bureau proposal at this
time.
They did indicate, however, that
the Farm Bureau’s plan is being
studied closely in Washington and
parts of it eventually may be ac
cepted into package that
ultimately receives Ad
ministration backing.
Under the Farm Bureau plan,
dairy price supports are tied to a
supply-demand “adjuster’’
reflecting market reality, ac
cording to a summary provided by
the Pennsylvania Farmers’
Association, a Farm Bureau
member organization.
Milk would be supported at 90
percent of a three-year average
all-milk price, adjusted up or down
according to expected levels of
government purchases.
Price support adjustments, not
to exceed three percent in any six
month period, could be made by
the Secretary of Agriculture, if net
purchases are estimated to exceed
eight billion pounds of milk
equivalent within a year, under the
Farm Bureau legislation.
The plan also outlines a “com
modity bonus” that allows one
third of excess Commodity Credit
Corp, or farmer-owned reserve
stocks to be used each year as an
export incentive.
The bonus has been designed to
move surplus commodities while
also offering a way to retaliate
against other nations that have
undersold us in world markets
through their own form of sub
sidies.
The plan would also set com
modity loans for feed grains,
wheat, soybeans and nee at 75
percent of the five-year average
market price, excluding the
highest and lowest years, with
annual adjustments of no more
than 10 percent.
Target prices would be frozen at
this year’s level for 1986, and would
Dairy expert says
Cattle sales contracts
unfair to dairymen
BY SALLY BAIR
Staff Correspondent
LANCASTER - Dr Ronald
Buffington, Holstein breeder from
Ohio, urges Pennsylvania
dairymen to promote their cows,
their products and their own self
interests.
Speaking around the state last
week as part of the Holstein
Forums, Buffington made it clear
that he feels dairymen are being
taken unfair advantage of with the
popular “terms” of contracts with
high-selling cattle in public sales
Pointing out that the sellers of
many of the highest price cows
never collect all the money that is
due, he said, “The economics of
selling registered Holsteins is not
fair to the breeder "
Buffington stated that “there are
some people willing to buy and not
pay." He strongly suggested that
breeders make contracts "binding
enough that we can collect.” As
owner of Rosebuff Associates,
Buffington gained recent ex
perience by selling a high-priced
animal in the exclusive “South
Fork” sale in Dallas, Texas
Buffington also took the state
and national breed associations to
task for offering no support to
dairy breeders in contract sales
More on Holstein forums on page A3B
$7.50 per year
be set at 110 percent of the same
average market prices used to set
commodity loan rates, beginning
in 1987. Prices could not be ad
justed more than five percent in a
year.
Other features of the plan in
clude;
• Elimination of the farmer
owned grain reserve.
• Establishment of a seven to 15
percent conservation reserve
program.
• Reduction of feed-grain
acreage when carryovt." stacks
exceed specified levels.
Farm Bureau economists
estimate that the plan submitted
by the 3.3-million-member
organization would cost an
average of $6.8-billion a year.
“American Farm Bureau’s farm
bill is more flexible and more
market responsive than other farm
bills which have already been
introduced,” PFA President Keith
Eckel said in releasing the
proposal. “The Farm Bill being
presented today represents the
thinking of over 90 percent of the
food and fiber producers in
(Turn to Page A 35)
The national association, he said,
simply wants to register cattle
To illustrate his point, Buf
fington took the example of a cow
that sells for $lOO,OOO Terms are
often $25,000 in a year, $25,000 in
the next year, and $25,000 in the
next year. The sales agency takes,
its 15 percent commission off the
first payment, and after ad
vertising and other expenses are
deducted the dairyman may be left
with $5,000
The rest of the money he may
never see because of the way the
terms are written. The >_ow may
not be treated well and therefore
becomes less valuable, or it could
die. Sometimes a cow is resold and
the original seller has still not been
paid
lo make sales more fair to the
breeder, Buffington suggests that
terms be made 40 percent up front
and two more payments of 30
percent each 'We as breeders
shouldn’t have to absorb
everything,” he added Therefore,
the sales force should receive their
commission in three equal
payments.
Buffington advocates asking
bankers to stand up and be
counted, and having them approve
(Turn to Page A3B)