VOL. 31 No. 16
Holstein Association members from across the state will
gather at the luxurious Sheraton Hotel at Station Square, in
downtown Pittsburgh, for their annual convention next
weekend.
Holstein, beef, pork
meetings next week
PITTSBURGH Dairy and
livestock breeders of all kinds will
be holding annual meetings next
week at scattered sites throughout
the area.
The Pennsylvania Holstein
Association will kick things off on
Thursday, with its annual con
vention in Pittsburgh.
Also on Thursday, the state’s
swine producers are looking for
ward to the Keystone Pork
Congress at the Penn Harris Motor
Inn in Harrisburg.
Meanwhile, the state Cat
tlemen’s Association holds its
annual conference and “Spring
Fling” Friday through Sunday at
the Allenberry Resort in Boiling
Springs.
Dairy matters spread next door
to Maryland where the Maryland
Holstein Association’s Annual
Meeting runs Friday and Saturday
in Hagerstown.
Holstein breeders from across
Pennsylvania converge on Pitt
sburgh to start this weekend of
annual meetings. This promises to
Vo-ag students find heavier academic load complicates scheduling
BY SUZANNE KEENE
LANCASTER Controversy
stirs in vocational classrooms
across the state as this year’s high
school freshmen juggle their
schedules to fit in a heavier load of
required academic credits. The
concern is that students wishing to
enter vocational programs will not
be able to squeeze in all the courses
they need, especially if they fail a
FFA Week starts today
Nearly a half million FFA
members across the country
will be promoting vocational
agriculture and the agricultural
industry during FFA Week,
Feb. 15 to 22. This year’s theme,
“Leaders for the New Fields of
Agriculture,” will highlight the
students’ promotional efforts.
To recognize these student’s
Four Sections
be an exciting activity packed
weelwdji ijullke any others in
recent years.
A mall promotion designed to
promote milk is scheduled for the
Friday and Saturday right in the
Station Square Freight House
shops. Here dairy princesses from
around the state will be making
such dairy products as butter and
ice cream. A live calf will also be
on display at the Spring House
store in the mall and is certain to
attract a crowd.
Pittsburgh area school children,
grades K through three, have been
invited to tour the mall beginning
with a “bam tour”. This bam tour
is actually the sale cows housed in
the parking garage adjacent to the
Sheraton.
The sale, Friday night with 48
cows cataloged, promises to be
interesting.
Hoofprints will lead them from
the cows to Station Square and the
mall promotion. Here they will
also be submitting entries for a
coloring contest.
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required class.
The ’Bos have brought a renewed
interest in education and a move
“back to basics.” As part of his
plan for strengthening the
educational system, Governor
Thornburgh directed the Depart
ment of Education to develop a
program to update and improve
the vocational program in the
state’s schools.
and their importance to the
future of agriculture,
Farming profiles two of Penn
sylvania FFA’s top members,
the state Star Farmer and Star
Agribusinessman on page 818
Staff correspondent Sally Bair
also talked with state FFA vice
president Charles Kline; turn to
page B 2 for an interview with
this outstanding student
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 15,1986
Dairymen uncertain as
buyout details released
BY JAMES H. EVERHART
LANCASTER For well or ill,
government program or not, area
dairy farmers are eying the
federal government’s new herd
buyout program with a mixture of
skepticism, uncertainty and
unease.
But one thing is certain, they are
eyin’g it. Though few experts ex
pect massive numbers to par
ticipate, the region’s dairymen are
being driven by necessity to at
least give the plan a run-through
to see if it really “pencils out.”
At meetings throughout the area,
dairymen heard the experts ex
plain the regulations, talk about
the ifs, ands, and provisos, and
generally urge caution in for
mulating a proposal.
But at least in Lancaster, they
also heard Extension Service
Dairy Agent Glenn Shirk offer
some sobering thoughts on
A crowd of about 250 dairymen listens as speakers outline the details of the herd buyout
program Monday at the Farm and Home Center in Lancaster.
' The result of this effort was
Chapter 5, which updates the
curriculum requirements for all
public and nonpublic, nonlicensed
schools, and Chapter 6, which
outlines general provisions for
vocational education.
Under these curriculum
requirments approved in February
of 1984, students who will graduate
in 1989 are required to take ad
ditional academic courses to
receive a high school diploma. In
the past, students in four-year high
schools needed a total of 16 credits
for graduation. Under the
provisions of Chapters 5 and 6, that
total has jumped to 21 credits.
Students are required to take an
additional credit in each of math,
science and social studies, plus 2
credits of arts aqd/or hfeoanities.
They mustajsqflkke qpe Credit of
health and phyptid education and
five additional courses, including
vocational educational classes.
dairying over the next few years.
Admitting he was painting a
bleak picture, Shirk explained that
a combination of factors in
cluding the new Farm Bill, the
Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction
plan and overall milk consumption
will remake the economics of
dairying over the next few years.
“I hate to be pessimistic,” Shirk
said in unveiling a table listing
October 1987 milk support prices
ranging from $8.73 to $10.23 a
hundredweight. “But I have to
present the facts.”
Shirk noted that Gramm-
Rudman cuts will either pare $2.25
from the support price, or, if a new
proposal is successful, will result
in a 50-cent-per-cwt. assessment.
And the herd-buyout plan, he
said, will offer a way for many to
leave the industry . . . and it cer
tainly won’t pave the way for them
to reenter in the future.
While few would contest the
Importance of academic courses,
vocational instructors and
directors are concerned about the
effect Chapters 5 and 6 will have on
vocational programs.
Peter Uhlig, director of Lebanon
County Vo-Tech says: “Chapters 5
and 6 were written with certain
purposes in mind to meet certain
needs. Unfortunately, vocational
education in that whole process
wasn’t as highlighted as it should
have been.”
“It’s a good thing for academic
students,” says Jim Kerr,
president of the Pennsylvania
Vocational Agricultural Teachers
Association and a horticulture
teacher at Willow Street Vo-Tech
in Lancaster County. “But,” he
adds, “it has reduced the students
in ag.” The additional academic
requirements make it difficult, if
not impossible, for students to
squeeze vocational courses into
$7.50 per year
“It’s meant to be rough,” he
said, “not popular, but rough.”
As Shirk and Lancaster County
ASCS head Ray Brubaker ex
plained the regulations, there were
sighs, snickers and a lot of
questions. But there was no doubt
that USDA means business this
time around.
In summary, the dairymen
learned that program participants
cannot allow their milk-producing
facilities to be used in milk
production for five years. Nor can
they own or have any interest in
dairy animals themselves.
They can, for instance, raise
grain and sell it to their neighbor to
feed to his cows. Both their silos
and barns can be leased to store
feed for another person’s dairy
operation. They may even allow a
neighbor to graze his heifers on
their property.
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their heavy schedules.
Carl Graver, a guidance coun
selor at Smith Middle School in
Lancaster County’s Solanco School
District, agrees that the additional
requirements have made
scheduling more complicated. “It
makes it tougher to get a
diploma,’’ he said.
Education swings back and forth
like a pendulum, and right now,
Graver said, the pendulum is
pointed in the academic direction.
“I think the students feel this,” he
noted, and the result will be fewer
students in both vo-tech and vo-ag
programs.
Because of the changing
programs, some vo-tech schools,
including Lebanon County Vo-Tech
and Lancaster County’s Willow
Street and Brownstown vp-tech
schools, are moving to a sCniors
only system. Before, students in
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