-ATTENTION
PRODUCE GROWERS-
DUTCH COUNTRY GROWERS
TO HELP FILL EXISTING PRODUCE
Peppers, tomatoes, canteloupes, sweet corn, egg plants &
cold crops are especially needed. A special meeting will be
held at the PA Tobacco Auction facility on Pumping Station
Rd., Quarryville, PA. Please plan to attend for more infor
mation.
WEDNESDAY. MARCH 18. 1987
Bob Todd, Sales Manager, 717-786-8500
NEED YOUR CROPS
ORDERS.
MEETING
7 P.M.
Lancaster Faming, Saturday, March 14,1M7-A24
RCMA Plans Elections,
Near 95 Percent Signup
BY MARTHA SHELDON
New York Correspondent
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Regional
Cooperative Marketing Agency
officials will evaluate the
economic climate for triggering
over-order prices as soon as
elections of independent board
members are completed in mid-
April.
Following a board meeting on
Wednesday in Syracuse, RCMA’s
President William Zuber an
nounced meetings to elect in
dependent board members to
represent all 17 regions in the
Northeast. The first meeting is
slated for March 18.
“As soon as the elections are
complete,” Zuber said, “RCMA
will evaluate the economic con
ditions and establish its over-order
price as the economic environment
dictates.” Zuber hopes to be able to
enact over-order premiums by
July.
Both Zuber and RCMA
Executive Director Edward Anna,
whose full-time position and office
are budgeted for the current year,
are confident the agency will reach
its 95 percent enrollment goal by
the time the elections are com-
We are still buying & receiving
tobacco at our receiving station
on Manheim Pike, Wednesday
afternoon and all day Thursday,
Friday, and Saturday mornings.
We are paying .50 cents per lb.
for good middles and tops w/no
green. We are also buying
bottoms. We are also processing
tobacco. We will buy part of your
crop & process part of your crop,
or whatever you would like to do.
It will cost you the farmer nothing
up front to process your tobacco.
plete. Neither, however, will
venture to guess how much those
over-order premiums will amount
to per hundred pounds of milk
shipped.
Zuber and Anna estimate RCMA
can add between $lOO million and
$l5O million to the pockets of
Northeast dairy farmers during
1967.
Zuber said RCMA is within “a
couple of points” of its 95 percent
membership target. Pennsylvania
continues to lag behind, Anna said,
primarily because some handlers
are actively discouraging
producers from signing.
“There is no risk at all to far-
mers who join RCMA,” Zuber said.
“Today the board passed a
resolution guaranteeing a market
to any producer whose handler
drops him because of his RCMA
membership.”
In addition, Zuber said the board
agreed that if RCMA has to divert
any producers milk away from his
current handler, RCMA will pay
that producer the regulated price
plus, if funds are available, any
premiums the producer had been
receiving from his handler. Those
premiums will be paid “for a
reasonable length of time” Zuber
said, although the board has not
yet defined how long reasonable is.
Only those farmers who are
members of RCMA on the day of
the election will be able to vote for
their representatives to the board
of directors or to receive any of the
money collected by RCMA. The
money to run RCMA will be
deducted from the over-order
premiums paid by handlers, not
collected directly from farmers.
RCMA bylaws limit that cost
deduction to 2 percent of the over
order premiums, but Zuber ex
pects them to be considerably less.
Anna has been on board as the
executive director for only eight
weeks but said, “I refuse to see this
thing drag on. This is a major step
in finalizing RCMA.”
Dates have been set for all but
one of the regional meetings, but
some of the locations have not yet
been determined. Anna expects to
finalize those locations next week.
Regions and their meeting dates
are:
•March 18, Region 1 Augusta
Civic Center, 1 p.m.
•March 19, Region 2 Plainfield,
New Hampshire, no time set
•March 24, Region 5 Minaville
Town Hall, 1 p.m.
•March 25, Region 6 Wampsville
Fireman’s Park (Next to Madison
City Courthouse), 1-3 pm.
•March 26, Region 4 Deerville
Restaurant on Rt. 12,1-3 p.m.
•March 27, Region 3 West
Potsdam Volunteer Fire Hall, 1
p.m.
EJ. Parker Tobacco
Company
Bobby Oldham
717-299-9520
Thank You! Ron Bowen