VOL. 31 No. 19
The fate of Pennsylvania’s Extension Service hangs in the
balance as Congress considers future budget cuts.
Budget cuts cloud
Extension’s future
Y SUZANNE. KEENE
M '• ASTER - Federal funding
lo f<M n nsion
Serv* i has already been reuuced
becau'i 01 • .Tarrm Rudman, and
more (uts will surely follow next
year
But how big those cuts will be
and what effect they will have on
the Ev tension program is still
unceitain
Federal funds for Extension
were cut 4.9 percent for fiscal 1986,
part of an overall $11.7 billion
budget reduction package
designed to cut the federal deficit.
To adjust for the cut, which
amounts to about a half a million
dollars, the Extension Service is
holding open 20 county agent and
10 state staff positons, reports
Richard Phillips, assistant
director of the Pennsylvania
Extension Service. •
The financial outlook for fiscal
1987 is even gloomier. In his
proposed budget for next year,
President Reagan has called for a
Johanna Farms buys Atlantic Processing
BY MARTHA J. GEHRINGER
FLEMINGTON, N j - There will
lie almost no impact on farmers
from Johanna Farms, Inc.’s
acquisition of an Allentown
processing facility, officials said
acre this week.
“The farmers will notice no
differences, and will be better
financially,” Ken Rosenthal, vice
President of Johanna Farms Inc.,
noted while commenting on its
h-cent acquisition of Atlantic
Processing, Inc., Allentown.
The purchase includes Atlantic’s
Processing facilities for fluid milk,
juice, ice cream and cultured
Products, as well as the rights to its
trademarks.
Johanna Farms and Atlantic
Processing will continue to supply
to the markets under the
“Jjnes Lehigh Valley Farms,
•ohanna Farms, Harbisons, Ab-
Ootts, Sealtest and Montco.
®*sically, Atlantic is now out of the
Processing business, but will
continue to market milk to
Johanna and Beatrice Foods.
The processing facilities pur
60 percent decrease in Extension
allocations. In 1986, the Extension
Service received $10,400,000 in
lederal funds; that amount would
be sIaShHU"W"|J,99O,OOO in 1987
should 1 Reagan’s budget be ap
proved intact.
A 60 percent cut in federal funds
would represent about a 30 percent
drop in the total operating budget
of the Extension Service, which
gets approximately half its funding
from the federal government and
half from the state, Phillips said.
What programs would be cut or
altered to accommodate a smaller
budget has net yet been decided, he
said. However, Phillips noted, in
the documentation accompanying
Reagan’s budget proposal, the
president indicated: “that Ex
tension agents may provide other
services only after the needs of
farm operators have been met.”
Thdtt statement, Phillips said,
has been interpreted as limiting
federal monies to agricultural
(Turn to PageAl9)
chased by Johanna are located in
Allentown, Lansdale, Schuylkill
Haven and State College, Penn
sylvania and in Baltimore and
Salisbury, MD.
Alpheus Ruth, president of
Lehigh Valley Farmers, said that
Johanna approached the
organization originally.
Johanna’s interest began with an
informal agreement to bottle milk
for Atlantic, after a fire last May
prevented milk from being
processed at the Lansdale plant.
Johanna was interested in ex
panding its market west further
into Pennsylvania and south
deeper into Maryland and
Virginia, Rosenthal pointed out.
And the experience with Atlantic
indicated a closer tie would be
beneficial.
The acquisition would also move
the company closer to its markets
and permit it to operate all phases
of its operation more efficiently.
A prime interest in this
acquisition was Atlantic’s ice
cream and cultured products
plants. Kurt Goldman, president of
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 8,1986
Senate okays Lyng, b&cks
10-cent dairy assessment
BY JAMES H. EVERHART
WASHINGTON - The U.S.
Senate, which must have thought it
was finished with agricultural
issues last December after
passage of the 1985 Farm Bill and
the emergency Farm Credit
legislation, once again spent much
of the week absorbed in
agriculture.
In a major move, the upper
chamber confirmed presidential
confidante Richard Lyng as the
new Secretary of Agriculture
Thursday, ending three weeks of
uncertainty in the high command
at USDA.
The Senate also approved a
package of Farm Bill revisions,
including a controversial dairy
provision to substitute a 10-cent
assessment for the 4.3-percent cut
required by the Granun-Rudman
budget-cutting legislation
Lyng, who was California’s
Director of Agriculture while
Reagan was governor ofthat state
in the 19605, was also Deputy
USDA Secretary during the first
five years of the Reagan Ad
ministration.
A long-time Reagan advisor on
farm issues, Lyng was approved
by a voice vote of the Senate
Agriculture Committee, and
confirmed by an overwhelming 98-
2 margin later in the day. Only
dairy state Senators William
Proxmire of Michigan and Donald
Riegel of Michigan opposed the
appointment.
Lyng replaces John Block, who
stepped down Feb. 14 after five
years as USDA chief.
Meanwhile the Senate also
adopted a package of Farm Bill
revisions containing the dairy
Johanna, said “The acquisition of
this business will provide us with
new capacity for our fluid milk and
juice operations, as well as an
entry into the ice cream and cot
tage cheese business.”
The ice cream plant will also
provide a ready outlet for the
cream from their fluid milk plant
in Flemington, NJ.
Johanna previously marketed
fluid milk in New Jersey, eastern
Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Delaware, northern Virginia and
Washington. Its juice and yogurt
products were sold from Maine to
Florida and as far west as
Colorado.
Milk will continue to be supplied
by the remaining section of
Atlantic and its member
cooperatives: Lehigh Valley
Farmers, Dairylea, Mount Joy,
Cumberland Valley Milk
Producers and Capitol Milk
Producers.
The business will be operated by
a new subsidiary of Johanna,
(Turn to PageAl9)
industry’s antidote to the Gramm-
Rudman-Hollings budget-cutting
measure passed by the Congress
late last year.
The key dairy provision would
substitute a 10-cent-per
hundredweight production
assessment for the 4.3-percent
reduction in support price required
by the budget-cutting legislation.
In effect, the Gramm-Rudman
cut would have required a Sfrcent
drop in the support price, a move
that would have dropped prices for
all dairy products, not just those
sold in surplus.
By spreading the assessment
across all milk sold in the U.S. and
not just the 10 percent of
production purchased by the
Commodity Credit Corporation,
the measure would maintain dairy
prices at current levels. The
assessment is designed to raise
enough money to equal the 4 3-
Officials report success
in eradicating flu
BY JACK HUBLEY
LANCASTER After three
quiet weeks on the front lines,
Pennsylvania poultry exports are
ready to declare a victory in the
latest skirmish with avian in
fluenza.
“I think it’s over,” the Penn
sylvania Poultry Federation’s
executive director, John Hoffman,
told a group of industrymen at
Poultry Progress Day held at the
Lancaster Farm and Home Center
on Thursday. The last confirmed
case of the deadly HSN2 virus
involved a flock of 6,200 turkeys in
the Pitman area that was
depopulated on Feb. 19.
Although officials are taking a
Guernsey tour highlight
David Smith holds Lebanon Valley Star Elsie, one of the
outstanding animals Guernsey breeders will see next week
when they tour Lebanon Valley Star Farms, one of the tour
sites on the agenda at the Pennsylvania Guernsey Breeders
convention. For more on this interesting operation, turn to
page A 26.
50 per Year
percent cut required by Gramm-
Rudman.
Adopted by a voice vote in the
Senate Thursday, the measure was
stalled in political maneuvering in
the House of Representatives. The
assessment proposal had been
raised several times in the House
over the past week, according to
Doni Dondero, a legislative aide
for the National Milk Producers
Federation.
Reportedly some urban
congressman were opposing the
measure, citing it as a special
exception that would thwart the
intent of the Farm Bill and the
Gramm-Rudman legislation. A
coalition of dairy industry groups
has lobbied strongly for the
proposal.
The Administration has not
taken a stand publicly on the issue,
though, thero are indications it has
opposed the measure privately.
hard look at a Lebanon County
gamebird flock where virus an
tibodies have turned up, no live
virus had been uncovered as of
Thursday. “We feel we have
broken the original source of
contamination and the secondary
spread by our own industry,”
Hoffman said.
The source that Hoffman was
referring to was the New York live
bird’market, where surveillance
had uncovered live virus at at least
six market locations in New York
since the current outbreak
began after Christmas.
Responding to the problem that
(Turn to Page A 22)