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PERIODICALS DIVISION 048 —I !■ '1 , I —>
7 PENN STATE UNIVERSITY I I
4 MZO9 PATTE LIBRARY
UNIV PARK PA 1680 Z A
V 01.44 No. 35
Field work for farmers in the Northeast has progressed on schedule as the
weaker provided excellent working conditions. Even with some relief from
drought conditions as raindWsKhlMil areas, the Pennsylvania Ag Statistics
Service reported 37 percent o£4b**soil moisture rated very short, 47 percent
short, and 16 percent adequate. Elsewhere in this issue Gov. Tom Ridge, added
12 new counties to the drought watch he initiated several weeks ago to put all but
the Northwest part of the state on voluntary water conservation alert. Barley
harvest was nearly completed this week, and pasture conditions declined due to
the warm, dry weather. The corn crop condition remained variable with height
VERNON ACHENBACH JR.
Lancaster Farming Staff
LANCASTER (Lancaster
Co.) A group of 52 dairy for
mers met in Lancaster at the Farm
and Home Center this spring for
the second meeting in a series of
meetings that kicked off the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Risk
Management Agency adminis
tered $lO million Dairy Options
This is the first in a series
reporting on the U.S. Depart*
ment of Agriculture’s Risk
Management Agency admi
nistered $lO million Dairy
Options Pilot Program
(DOPP).
This first report is on the
initial meeting and explana
tion of the program as pre
sented in Lancaster County.
Ail presentations made dur
ing the introductory meeting
series were to have been
structured the same, with dif
ferent presenters represent
ing different agencies
depending upon the location.
Two articles to follow, by
Lancaster Fanning correspon
dent Sandra Bradley, of
Grove City, reports on how
well the program has been
received, and on how parti
cipants have fared using It,
especially in light of the unex
pected drop in BFP earlier
this year.
Four Sections
Dairy Options Pilot Program Design Offers
Farmers Opportunity To Set Floor Price
Pilot Program (DOPP).
The nationwide program is
designed to help dairy farmers
transition completely away from
federal government price support
programs.
Pennsylvania was selected as
the first state to participate.
Nationally the goal was to include
42 counties in seven states, broken
down to six counties per selected
state.
The goal was to have 100 parti
cipants per county, but the partici
pation has been less. However, that
fact doesn’t affect the program or
those who have elected to
participate.
(If there would have been mote
than a 100 applications, a lottery
would have been held to determine
who could participate.)
The written objective of the
program is. To ascertain whether
‘put’ options can provide dairy
producers with reasonable protec
tion from price risk,” according to
USDA officials.
As with other agencies and divi
sions of the USDA, the USDA
Risk Management Agency is a
renamed agency with additional
responsibilities. It had been the
agency that handled the federal
crop insurance program, and it sdll
deals with crop insurance.
According to the agency’s
Director Larry Atkinson, the agen
cy has expanded its purview in
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 3, 1999
order to better serve in stabilizing
United States agriculture during
the transition, especially the dairy
industry.
Crop insurance and commodity
trading tools have long been used
by that grain production sector to
protect against price drops, espe
cially during bumper crop years.
But there has been little to no
use of such protections by the dairy
industry, and there is no federal
milk price insurance program. It
wasn’t until 1993 that dairy futures
began being offered as trading
contracts.
While other livestock and com
modity production sectors are also
being phased out from federal sup
PDA Presents Ag Research Symposium II
VERNON ACHENBACH JR.
Lancaster Farming Staff
HARRISBURG (Dauphin
Co.) Publicly sponsored,
ongoing agricultural research
administered through the Pennsyl
vania Department of Agriculture
protects and ensures the well
being of the state’s agricultural
industry, and holds the promise for
expanding opportunities for
cntreptenuerialism.
That notion was reinforced
through the second annual PDA
Agricultural Research Sympo
sium, recently held in a meeting
room in the East Wing of the Main
across the area set at 20 inches. Soybeans hauemerged and looked mostly fair to
good. Many farmers cut hay for haylage or to make quality hay because of the
good drying conditions. As farmers looJfy|pft*«il|llM they report that they are
hauling manure, and spreading fertilizers on harvested fields. In the photo,
Shawn Burkholder in an Amos Eby Co. truck was spreading lime Monday
afternoon on John Stoltzfus' farm at the corner of Oak Hill and Black Horse
Roads just south of Paradise. A slight breeze and the backlight from the sun
provide a nice soft picture composition for the farm in the background. Photo by
Everett Newswanger, editor.
port pricing, the dairy industry
appears ripe for focusing initial
efforts by the USDA in preparing
the agricultural production indus
try for the scheduled removal of a
commodity price safety net
After this year, there arc to be no
more federal price supports.
There are several reasons for
selecting the dairy industiy.
The poultry industry has largely
become integrated and dependent
upon contractual relationships
between producers and processors
and feed manufacturers. Produc
tion costs and margins seem fairly
well controlled through the
integration.
The swine industiy has been on
Capital Building in Harrisburg.
With a backdrop banner that
proclaimed, “Products for the
Planet,” state secretary of Agricul
ture Samuel E. Hayes Jr. stood
behind a podium bearing the seal
of Pennsylvania, and welcomed
•be audience, making note of the
The photo pages of the award winners from the
Pennsylvania FFA Activities Week and Summer Convention
starting on page BIS will be of special interest. Also to
celebrate Independence Day, the office of Lancaster Farming
will be closed Monday, July 5. Our office will reopen for
regular business hours on Tuesday, July 6, at 8 a.m.
$31.00 Per Year
Lancaster Farming Issue Notes
600 Per Copy
track toward a similar integrated
structure, especially with last fall
through this year swine prices to
independent producers ridiculous
ly below the cost of production.
The dairy industry is still
described as largely peopled by
independent producers, although
more and more dairy industry
decision-makers have expressed
confidence that the majority of it
too is headed toward contractual
production, or at least some form
of integration winch perhaps
could be best described as a type of
private quota system.
The fate for independent dairy
producers is not clear, however,
(Turn to Pag* A2S)
local FFA chapter members in
attendance, as well as officials.
Hayes has been especially
aggressive in several areas relating
to agricultural and economic well
being education, marketing,
research, product development,
(Turn to Pago A 29)