A36-Lmctttor Farming, Saturday, May 9,1992
Maryland Farmer Joins National Dairy Board During Troubled Times
KARL BERGER
Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON, D.C. Fre
derick County, Md., fanner Harold
Lenhart will bring honesty, inte
grity. and a working farmer’s per
spective with him when he joins
the National Dairy Promotion and
Research Board next week in
Washington, according to Maids
and colleagues in the local farm
community.
Lenhart, one of a new crop of
appointees to the national promo
tion group, replaces Ernest Miller
of Hamburg. Pa., as a representa
tive of a region comprised of Pen
nsylvania, Maryland, Delaware,
and New Jersey. He will attend his
first meeting May 20-22 in the
nation’s capital.
Lenhart joins the board at a deli
cate time in its nine-year history.
Farmers leading a “Dump the
Dairy Board” drive claim they
have garnered 11,000 signatures
on a petition to force a referendum
on the mandatory IS-cent a hun
dredweight checkoff that funds the
board and other local and regional
advertising organizations across
the country.
Mike O’Connell, a Wisconsin
farmer active in the drive, said he is
confident it will get the
14,000-15,000 signatures needed
to trigger die referendum. By law,
the U.S. Department of Agricul
ture must conduct a referendum if
requested by 10 percent or more of
the commercial dairymen in the
country, a number USDA now
estimates at about 145,000.
O’Connell said the drive’s orga
nizers hope to submit their petition
to USDA this fall and force a vote
on the checkoff next winter.
Perhaps the major bone of con
tention involves bovine somatot
ropin (BST), the controversial hor
mone product still awaiting a fed
eral decision on availability. The
board spent about $1.3 million
during the past two years distribut
ing information from the federal
Food and Drug Administration and
other sources that claims that milk
from cows given the hormone is
safe to drink. The board’s critics
interpreted this effort as an impro
per endorsement of BST, a charge
board spokesmen dispute.
Opponents also have criticized
the payment of per diem fees to
farmers in various official posts,
claiming it leads to leaders who are
out of touch with the .grassroots.
The National Dairy Bowl does not
pay per diem fees to its directors,
although sponsoring organizations
sometimes do.
Lenhart, who was sponsored for
his new post by the Maryland Farm
Bureau, has held many leadership
posts at the local and state level
without such compensation.
The 59-year-old Lenhart is part
of the third generation of his fami
ly to milk cows for a living. His
brother works the home farm; Len
hart has the one next door. His
three sons two of whom are
officially part of the family part
nership, Len-Land Acres, as is his
wife. Ruth make up the fourth
generation.
The Lenharts crop about 700
acres in the “redland” soils near
Thurmont, Md. They currently
milk about 220 cows, all but a few
of which are registered Holsteins.
Although the family does a little
merchandising, the main focus is
marketing milk, according to the
elder Lenhart.
The Lenharts have long been
active in church, civic, and farm
affairs. Lenhart currently is presi
dent of the Frederick County Farm
Bureau and chairman of die state
Farm Bureau’s membership com
mittee. He’s a former president of
the Frederick County Holstein
Association and chairman of the
county’s Agricultural Preservation
Advisory Board. As a member of
Maryland Farm Bureau's dairy
committee, he has been involved
in recent efforts to organize a state
based milk pricing initiative.
Although he has not served as a
director of the Middle Atlantic
Milk Marketing Agency, the major
local promotion group. Lenhart is
not a stranger to dairy promotion.
He currently serves as chairman of
the milk promotion committee of
the Maryland Holstein
Association.
Lenhart said he does not go to
the Dairy Board with any particu
lar agenda. However, coming up
with new uses for dairy products
and targeting jhe consumption of
milk at meals eaten away from
home are among the activities that
hold the most promise for impro
ving dairy farmers’ bottom lines,
he said. The lifelong farmer said he
has little patience with critics of
the 15-cent assessment.
“Nobody wants the IS cents
taken off,” Lenhart said. “But I
think (the national board mem
bers) have done an outstanding job
as far as advertising. I think
they’ve done an outstanding job of
nutrition work.’’
There will always be critics who
claim that investing in any organi
zation is not worthwhile, accord
ing to Lenhart. Moreover, it’s very
difficult to prove that fanners’
investment in promotion pays off
in greater sales. But, he said, “If
there wouldn’t be a profit in adver
tising. the cola companies, the beer
companies wouldn’t be spending
the millions that they’re
spending,”
The Dairy Board does plan to
spend $56.43 million on various
advertising campaigns in the fiscal
year that began May 1, or about 72
percent of its $7B million operating
budget for fiscal 1993, according
to spokesman Thelma Schoon
maker. Other planned expendi
tures include $10.2 million for
dairy food add nutrition research,
$4.5 million for public relations
and education efforts and $3 mil
lion for market research.
By law, the board receives five
out of every IS cents contributed
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farmer,, jsthe National Da.
Promotion Board next week In Washington. Lenhart is the
new director in the region comprised of Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Delawatf and New Jersey.
by farmers. Its actual budgets
reflect a slightly higher percentage
than the mandated one-third; the
remainder goes to the other promo
tion groups, Schoonmaker said.
Lenhart will be one of 36 far-
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