VOL. 32 No. 13
MAMMA Hears Proposal To Merge Promotion Programs
BY EVERETT NEWSWANGER
Managing Editor
HUNT VALLEY, Md. - The
chief executive officer of the
National Dairy Board unveiled the
suggested plans to merge the
National Dairy Board and the state
and regional groups into one
overall board that would include 72
persons-36 appointed by the
National Agricultural Secretary,
as is now done, and 36 from the
state and regional groups per their
participation in the national
program.
Joseph Westwater, speaking at
the board meeting of MAMMA
here Wednesday, said the National
Dairy Board borrowed ideas from
the National Milk Producers
Federation Structure Committee
proposals and made modifications
to address some of the concerns of
the National Dairy Board. While
showing an organization chart to
outline how the plan could work,
Westwater said nothing was set in
concrete and a great deal of
discussion is going on at the
present time.
In questions from the MAMMA
board members after the
presentation, the most concern
seemed to be expressed about how
the successful advertising cam
paigns from regional groups would
be used in the national program.
Westwater saw successful
programs going both ways. “The
national organization could plug
into the regional group campaign
and maybe picking up some of the
development costs as well as
national programs to be made
available through the regional
groups at reduced costs. This
Vegetable Growers Urge Members
To Support Research Program
BY SUZANNE KEENE
HERSHEY Leaders in the Penn
sylvania Vegetable Growers’ Association
this week urged members to support the
Vegetable Research Program and en
couraged them to offer suggestions for
improving it.
“If we are to build a new program in the
future or revise the old program, we need
the support of the growers,” said Robert
Amsterdam during a session of the Penn
sylvania Vegetable Conference held in
Hershey this week. Amsterdam was hired
by the Vegetable Growers’ Association to
talk with members about the research
program and to find out why they are
dissatisfied with it.
“We as farmers have got to get behind
our own industry,” Association president
John Mason said. “We’ve got to continue to
do more and more research to do a better
job ”
Such research is funded in part through
the Vegetable Research Program. Passed
by a narrow margin in 1984, the program
assesses vegetable growers (farmers
raising ten or more acres of vegetables
with the exception of potatoes) an annual
fee of $1,50 per acre per year.
The money collected is placed in an
account administered by the
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
at the advice of an advisory board con-
would allow the National Dairy
Board and the state and regionals
a better way to budget their
dollars,” Westwater said.
Edward Peterson, the chief
executive officer of United Dairies
Industry Association discussed
exciting research that includes two
or three new products that will
Lancaster Stockyards Plans Move
BY JACK HUBLEY
LANCASTER - If all goes
as planned, one of the state’s
major livestock markets will
be operating from a new
location next year at this time.
Lancaster Stockyards, Inc.,
has announced a proposal to
sell its 21-acre facilities at the
comer of Marshall Ave. and
Lititz Pike in Lancaster to
Lanecor Associates, a real
estate development company
with offices in Lancaster, Pa.,
and Toledo, Ohio.
According to Lanecor’s
ntenSgTng partner Joe Deerin,
the firm hopes to begin con
struction of a shopping center
at the location within a year.
The company hopes to com
plete the project by fall, 1988.
Both Deerin and Stockyards
spokesman William G. McCoy
stress that the sale is con
tingent upon a number con
ditions. Foremost among
those conditions is the
livestock auction’s ability to
find a suitable relocation site.
A zoning change would also
have to be granted to permit
sisting of vegetable grower represen
tatives. The board solicits topics for
research and decides on a research
agenda.
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When it snows, many picturesque scenes can be photographed around
Lancaster Farming territory. Here is one that Lancaster Farming's editor
Everett Newswanger saw from Gap Hill on Route 30 at the corner of
Hoffmier Road. “We got a whole winter’s worth of snow in the last week or
so didn’t we 7"
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 31,1987
greatly enhance the future of the
dairy industry. With a new process
called freeze concentration, you
can extract the water from milk.
This opens the potential of a whole
new list of dairy products derived
from milk. For example, they have
a skim milk concentrate with one
percent fat added that tastes like
construction of the shopping
center.
Neither party would divulge
the selling price, but an article
in the Lancaster New Era
earlier this week reported the
price tag to be $4,125 million.
This puts the cost of an acre of
Stockyard ground in excess of
$192,000.
“We’re just sitting on land
that’s too high to mn a
livestock market on,” said
McCoy, who serves as Lan
caster Stockyards president.
McCoy noted that his firm is
currently looking for a
relocation site with “good
accessibility to major ar
teries.” Areas north, east and
west of Lancaster near Routes
283, 222 and 30 would be
considered, said McCoy.
McCoy pointed out that the
move comes at a good time in
the life of the century-old
Stockyards. “It’s an old
facility that takes a lot of
repair and upkeep,” he said.
“Looking down the road, we
know we’ve got to spend...at
cream. There is also a new high
calcium milk that is all dairy
products and tastes good. A new
butter-like product spreads well,
but has reduced calories and
cholesterol in its content.
In the year ahead, the Ad
vertising and Promotion Agency of
MAMMA will be using a balanced
least as much (in repairs) as
going to another facility.”
McCoy said his firm hopes
to consummate the sale within
a couple of months. He an
ticipates that Lancaster
Stockyards will continue to do
business at its present location
throughout the rest of 1987.
The Stockyards official
envisions erecting “a real
state-of-the-art facility,” on
about 10 acres of land. McCoy
hopes to make the transition
“without losing a market day.
There’s three generations of
commission firms that have
been doing business here since
the turn of the century,”
McCoy summed up. “I think
our patrons will stick with
us.”
The largest livestock
market in the state, Lancaster
Stockyards is widely con
sidered to be a price setter for
East Coast cattle markets.
The firm markets about
300,000 head of cattle, hogs,
sheep and goats annually,
with total receipts of $lOO
million.
Beef Promotion Program Outlined
At Lancaster Cattle Feeders Day
BY JACK HUBLEY
LANCASTER Cybil Shepherd says
she’s not sure she trusts people who don’t
eat burgers.
James Gamer says vegetables belong in
a salad and not on his shish kebab skewer.
Four Sections
approach to bring together the
many advertising elements
necessary for a successful
marketing year for the dairy
farmers of Federal Order #4.
An estimated 70 percent of
MAMMA’S budget will be spent on
advertising and promotion. The
board allotted 15 percent, or
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Auction Charged
WASHINGTON The Department of
Joitice has filed a lawsuit charging a cattle
auction home In Penniylvanla and Its
president with violating the Beef Promotion
and Research Act of INS, which Is enforced by
the Department of Agriculture. Assistant
Attorney General Richard K. Willard, In
charge of the Civil Division, said the civil suit
charging Vintage Sales Stables Inc. of
Paradise, Pa. and Its president, L. Robert
Frame Sr., was filed Tuesday with the U.S.
District Court In Philadelphia.
The suit seeks to require the defendants to
pay all assessments they owe under the Act
and to permanently enjoin Frame from
operating the cattle auction or any similar
livestock market without complying with the
Act
The Act together with the Order and
regulations promulgated under It establishes
s national industry-funded and operated
promotion and reasearch program designed to
strengthen the beef industry’s position In the
mafkalpiaoe.
The assessments are to be paid by
cattle producers and Importers and collected
By, among others, any person nuking
payment to cattle producers lor cattle. These
collection persons are to remit the assessment
to the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and
Research Board, the organisation established
to administrate the Beef Promotion and
Research Order, or to a state beef council
designed by the Cattlemen’s Board.
The suit says that Frame, doing business as
Vintage Sales Inc., Is a collection person under
the Act, In that he has been paying producers
lor their cattle since Oct 1, UN. The com
plaint alleges that he has refused to perform
hi» obligation under the Act to collect
assessments from the producers to whom he
makes payment for cattle and to remit the
monies to the Penns yvania Beef Council,
designated by the Catttlemen’i Board to
receive the assessments In Pennsylvania.
The complaint charges that as of Nov. IS,
INC, the amount the defeadaat should have
collected and remitted was approximately
|U,N4.
Neither one of the above television
celebrities appeared in the flesh at Cattle
Feeders Day on Tuesday, but their
presence in video form sooner or later
transfixed most of the cattlemen in at
tendance at Lancaster’s Farm and Home
Center.
Compared to the slate of beef experts
who shared the podium on Tuesday, it’s a
cinch that neither Shepherd nor Gamer
know beans about beef. But it’s also a safe
bet that either one could sell air con
ditioners to the Eskimos, and the Cat
tlemen’s Beef Promotion Board is betting
big bucks that the pair can pump some
muscle into a flaccid beef industry.
The commercials featuring the two
celebrities are part of a massive nation
wide promotional machine fueled by the
sl-per-head beef checkoff program and
overseen by the 113-member CBPB.
Pennsylvania’s representatives on the
board are dairyman John Cope and cat
tleman Paul Espy. The Keystone State
was fortunate enough to have Espy elected
to a 20-member National Operating
Committee responsible for determining
the direction of the program.
While events such as Cattle Feeders Day
have traditionally emphasized production,
Tuesday’s event departed from the
standard format by showing cattlemen
how the industry plans to increase demand
for its product. Included was a panel
$8.50 Per Year
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