A34-L«nc«stef Farming, Saturday, March 4, 2000
Lanco Dairy Cooperative
Hosts Meeting About
Proposed Pricing System
JAYNE SEBRIGHT
Lancaster Farming Staff
LANCASTER (Lancaster
Co.) On Monday, Lanco
Dairy Cooperative hosted a
meeting in Lancaster to rally
support for a new milk pricing
system it claims will benefit
smaller farmer.
About 25 people attended the
meeting, where board members
from Lanco Cooperative re
viewed a new plan they are pro
posing to replace the newly
adapted federal milk pricing
system.
Area legislators and industry
representatives, along with local
farmers, attended the meeting to
discuss the advantages and chal
lenges of the plan.
Called “Option USA,” the
proposed plan uses a 36-member
committee with three from each
of the 11 federal orders plus Cal
ifornia to determine the milk
price.
“The committee would meet
quarterly to collect USDA data
on consumption, exports, im
ports, and production cost, then
use that information to deter
mine the farmer’s milk price for
the next three months,” said
Ken Marshall, president of
Lanco Cooperative and a 75-
cow dairy farmer in northern
Maryland.
According to Mar
shall, the plan would
eliminate surplus by
using farmer-
generated funds to
subsidies exports to
poorer countries. The
plan also calls for the
farmer’s milk check to
be priced on a sliding
scale, paying more for
the first 100,000
pounds of milk a
farmer ships and
decreasing the price
per hundredweight for
each additional
100,000 pounds of
milk produced.
Lanco Dairy Coop
erative is a new coop
erative that began in
1998 with 32 members
and has grown to an
expected 400 members
by the end of April.
The cooperative is
made up of mostly
Amish farmers in Lan
caster and Chester
Counties with herds
averaging around 50
cows.
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The cooperathe is backboned
by Allied Federated Cooperative
in Canton, N.Y. According to
Marshall, Allied is a non-profit
cooperative with 35 other coop
eratives under them.
A volunteer Board of Direc
tors representing Lanco Cooper
ative operate the cooperative
from the dairy farmer’s stand
point, while Allied is hired to
market Lanco’s milk and return
the highest price possible to the
dairy farmer.
Critics of “Option USA”
claim it discriminates against
the large farmer and creates
legal challenges due to the Free
Trade Agreement. While
“Option USA” has officially re
ceived little support from other
dairy cooperatives and farm in
dustry organizations, Lanco Co
operative is optimistic.
“It’s not Lanco’s plan - we’re
just carrying the ball,” said Mar
shall. “A lot of other farmers are
supporting the plan. Area legis
lators have also agreed to sup
port the plan if they see enough
dairy farmers truly supporting
the measure.”
According to Marshall, the
Sierra Club is supporting this
plan to aid small farmers. For
more information about the
“Option USA” plan, contact
Ken Marshall at (410) 658-7532.
Pennsylvania Cattle Herds Get
Help To Control Johne’s Disease
JAYNE SEBRIGHT
Lancaster Farming Staff
HARRISBURG (Dauphin
Co.) A national study con
ducted several years ago indi
cated that at least 20 percent of
all dairy herd owners have some
degree of Johne’s disease in
their herd.
This chronic disease can
mean big economic losses to the
farmer through lost milk pro
duction and forced cullings. Al
though the study indicated that
a lower percentage of beef herds
are affected with the disease, it
is still prevalent in some herds.
That’s why the Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture
(PDA), in cooperation with the
Pennsylvania State University
and the University of Pennsyl
vania College of Veterinary
Medicine, have worked with
producer and ag industry repre
sentatives to develop a new
Johne’s program.
This program is a composite
of three separate but mutually
supportive programs that help
farmers identify Johne’s in their
herd, manage any problems, and
receive certification for a
Johne’s free herd.
The first program is the “30
Free” Test Program. This is
ideal for herd owners that have
no idea whether or not they have
Johne’s in their herd. PDA will
provide ELISA tests of 30 ani
mals in the herd at no lab fee.
The farmer has to pay for the
veterinarian to take the blood
sample and ship the samples,
but the laboratory fees are cov
ered by PDA.
“The “30 Free” Program is a
good way for farmers to find out
in a non-threatening way
whether their herd has a Johne’s
problem,” said Dr. Larry
Hutchinson, extension veteri
narian for Penn State.
“The advantage to the state is
that we can find out how serigus
this problem is in Pennsylvania
is it in all of the herds or how
many of the herds.”
The “30 Free” Program is a
preliminary indicator of Johne’s
in a herd. If all 30 blood tests
come back negative, the herd
owner can make the conclusion
that Johne’s is not that preva
lent in the herd. If many of the
tests come back positive, then it
is likely that Johne’s is wide
spread in the herd.
“The reason the number 30
was selected was because the
National Johne’s Working
Group (representing several uni
versities and regulatory organ
izations across the country)
identified 30 as a statistically
significant number that indi
cates a herd’s status with a high
degree of accuracy,” said
Hutchinson. “That’s only when
the 30 animals are selected ran
domly from the herd.”
In Pennsylvania, the herd
owners are not required to ran
domly pick their animals. So the
accuracy of the test depends on
the randomness of the herd
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The “30 Free” Program is
available to all beef and dairy
herds in Pennsylvania. If a
farmer wants to have the tests
completed, they should contact
their local veterinarian to begin
the process.
Participating in the “30 Free”
Test Program does not obligate
the farmer to do anything to
control Johne’s in their herd.
However, it is strongly encour
aged.
“Since the farmer does have
to pay to have the blood tests
taken, they may want to com
bine the Johne’s blood tests with
other tests, such as testing for
brucellosis,” said Huntchinson.
Once the herd’s status is iden
tified through the “30 Free”
Program, that status helps guide
the herd into the other two pro
grams that PDA offers.
If a herd’s results come back
all negative (with no indications
of Johne’s disease in the sam
ples), that herd can register for
the “Voluntary Johne’s Disease
Status Program.”
“The Voluntary Status Pro
gram provides a means of recog
nizing herds that are Johne’s
free through different levels of
testing,” said Hutchinson.
The program attempts to
move herds from level one certi
fication, which includes herds
with the lowest degree of cer
tainty in being Johne’s free, to
level four certification, which in
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