(Continued from Page A 10) graded to four-letter-word status by a majority of those in power. Both major political parties have bowed before the sacred cow of free trade and all recent adminis trations have circled the globe, shamelessly sacrificing American jobs and squandering taxpayer money in exchange for political favors. The Bush administration now plans to pursue a free-trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand to reward them for supporting the administration in its effort against Iraq. Thousands of U.S. dairy farmers and cattle growers would be sacrificed in this deal. Evidently this is what Bush administration officials re ally meant when they declared The Paul Mueller Company and your YLVANIA * Rufus Brubaker ★ Lyco Dairy Service Refrigeration Cogan Station, PA Manheim, Pa. 17545 ph : 570-494-0708 PH: 7 T R 3525 570-966-1396 Quarryville, Pa. 17566 * Fisher & Thompson PH: 717-786-1617 Belleville. PA ~ OR PH:7I7-935-7422 * M . artin ’ s Refrigeration Myei - sUlwrii Pa 17067 MARYLAND erv,ce „ _ irm PH: 717-933-4711 Fayetteville, Pa 17222 PH: 717-352-2783 Mifflmburg, PA PENN! ★ Keith’s Refrigeration Service Martmsburg, PA 16662 PH: 814,793-2783 : &»'■'^Vwr^' Vj 1 bring you good tidings of great Joy... (Jnto you is born tbis day in tbe city of f^)avicl a who is (Christ the Lord. May the peace and joy of this holiday season be in your heart now and throughout the coming year. ★ Priests Refrigeration Hagerstown. MD 21742 151* PH: 301-797-3921 Regional Manager PA, NY, New England Robin Shirley Hampton. NY PH: 518-282-0040 ★ MUELLER Star Dealers are committed to using all Mueller replacement parts and to continued training for up-to-date equipment and technological changes. trade policies which have result ed in depressed farm prices, while consumers pay more and more for lower quality food. The GAO report, “Food Safety-Feder al Efforts to Ensure the Safety of Imported Foods are Inconsistent and Unreliable,” estimated the cost of food bom illnesses to be between $6.6 and $37 billion dol lars annually. Millions of tons of food pour into the U.S. every year. Much of this is produced under low or nonexistent sanitary standards or contaminated with pesticides or herbicides that have long since been banned in the U.S. or that were never legal here. Very little is inspected, and even the inspections that do take place are often inadequate and ineffective. How can we put a price tag on the loss of rural infrastructure? A once prosperous and robust farm economy has become weak and anemic, kept on life support by costly government subsidies, which only repay a fraction of what is stolen by consolidated ag ribusiness facilitated by foolish and damaging trade policy. Good hard working and knowledgeable Luke 2 10 11 Distributors: Regional Manager MD, DE, VA Frank M. Bird Jr. ILA, GA PH: 706-789-3928 Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 21,2002-A29 Editor. Consumers are paying more for dairy products and dairy farmers’ net income is down 50 per cent, yet certain dairy processors are earning re cord profits. This would lead one to wonder, “Just who is getting milked?” Dean Foods, the largest fluid milk processor in the country, recently announced record earnings for 2002. The processor attributed the increased earnings to reduced raw milk costs, the synergy of mergers, and the success of its specialty lines. Meanwhile, at least two ice cream makers arc admittedly skimping on the amount of ice cream in a half-gallon container and scooping up profits from the sales of new 1.75-quart containers, for which they are charging the same price as the conventional two-quart containers. Processors and retailers cite rising ingredient costs for their actions. The opposite is true. The costs for butterfat and nonfat solids, the main dairy ingredients in ice cream, have dropped by one-third since January 2002. Prices paid to farmers for their milk have dropped more than 50 cents a gallon in some parts of the coun try since that time. Nationally, U.S. dairy farm ers will receive $4 billion less in milk receipts this year than last. At the same time, the administration is pro posing additional changes in dairy programs that would cost dairy farmers as much as $1 billion in lost income. Additionally, the U.S. is seeking to open borders even further to cheap dairy substi tutes from Australia and New Zealand, further flooding the U.S. market. Consequently, dairy farmers are receiving the lowest prices for their products since 1979 and are continuing to go out of business at a record pace. Unfortunately, economic projections pre dict that dairy prices paid to farmers have little, if any, chance of recovery in the coming months. Manufacturers, on the other hand, are paying only 50 cents for the dairy ingredients used in a one-half gallon of ice cream. The retail price of that same ice cream is about $5. And milk prices paid by consumers have held steady or increased. Recent surveys have shown that certain dairy processors and supermarket chains may be earn ing more than $1 a gallon in profits. Dairy farmers are not against processors and retailers having a successful year. However, a farmers are being lost. Farm fam ilies are in despair and stressed to the max. A whole generation of future farmers has no incentive to pursue a career in production agriculture. All this in spite of nearly one billion people around the world that go to bed hungry every night. Elected officials have failed the American people miserably by al lowing this foolishness to go on without even the slightest protest. Land grant universities have con tributed to the farmers’ demise by withholding the truth and by offering bad advice. We are sliding down a slippery slope. American agriculture is in a state of collapse. If America wishes to preserve an adequate supply of domestically produced food, we must act quickly and de cisively to free ourselves from the snare of global entanglement. The family farm system of agri culture that has served our na tion so well must be preserved. The cost of failing to do so will be staggering indeed. Gerald Carlin, dairy fanner Meshoppen (Turn to Page A3O)