Big turnout for state's farms
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By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer - Published: June 7, 2009
BRATTLEBORO – The crowds at the eighth annual Strolling of the Heifers Saturday were never so big, even as the future of Vermont dairy farming has never looked so grim.
About 18 Vermont dairy farms and area 4-H clubs sent heifers to the stroll up Main Street in celebration of Vermont's agricultural heritage, with 80 young bovines representing all the major dairy breeds: Holstein, Jersey, Brown Swiss, Ayrshire and Guernsey.
The mood was celebratory, and the crowds were enormous, Orly Munzing, the founder of the community celebration said after the parade.
"I never thought it would turn into something this big," she said, surveying the dairy festival on the grounds of the Brattleboro Retreat. "We want to continue on for 75 years or more. It's a real institution now."
Tens of thousands of people had filled the downtown area, waiting for the young bovine beauties, their equally picturesque young handlers, and children from every Brattleboro school and children's organization to make the march up Main Street under a beautiful early June sky.
The heifers, with names like Birthday and Kate and Tess, wore leis of silk flowers, their flanks shiny from currying and special care.
It was a celebration of locally-grown and locally-savored food. At the dairy fest the biggest lines were at the cheese tent, where Vermont cheesemakers offered free samples of their creations, whether it was a sharp cheddar from Grafton or Cabot, a smoked Gouda from Londonderry, a maple-smoked mozzarella from Bennington or tangy chevre from Bridport.
There were also big lines at different New England yogurt makers, the iconic Ben & Jerry's ice cream, organic dairies, and at the tent of the Vermont Fresh Network, where Brattleboro schoolchildren worked with award-winning chef Tristan Toleno to create Vermont dairy-based recipes.
But there was an undercurrent of tension to the celebration, as Vermont dairy farmers all over the state are struggling to stay in business and keep on milking cows because they are saddled with the lowest dairy prices in years and the highest production costs imaginable.
More than 30 Vermont dairy farmers have gone out of business since January, forced out of the farming tradition by federally-set milk prices. Farmers cannot set their own prices, despite what it costs them to make milk.
Demand has dropped due to the global economy, which has depressed both the conventional and organic milk markets, has also been a big factor.
At one point during the parade, master of ceremonies Tim Johnson of WTSA and Rick LeVitre of the UVM Extension Service, talked about the rock bottom milk prices amid the endless flow of cow puns.
"That is a crime," LeVitre said of the low milk prices.
Later, on the Brattleboro Commons, the enormous crowds scattered to either the Dairy Fest, the Green Expo about alternative energy or sustainable building, or to listen to folk music. Or watch a U.S. senator try unsuccessfully to milk a cow for the eighth straight year.
The farms that are going to survive are the ones that have diversified, and don't have a big debt load, said Doug Lantagne, dean of the University of Vermont Extension Service, who was on hand to help at the festival, judging the Miss VerMOOnt contest of the participating heifers, or in the celebrity milking contest.
John Franklin, a young farmer from Guilford whose parents run a large organic dairy, was the hands-down winner over dignitaries U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Munzing, both of whom had trouble "covering the bottom of the milk pail" with their efforts.
Sanders good naturedly said the eight years of the stroll had failed to produce the cow-milking touch.
Vermont and New England have always been in the lead to push for a different way of pricing milk in the country, Lantagne said, first with the Northeast Dairy Compact, and then with MILC, the Milk Income Loss Contract.
"I'm hopeful, but it's tempered with fear," Lantagne said. "By the time prices get so farmers can cover their costs, we will have lost a lot of dairy producers."
Even while milk prices paid to farmers have rebounded a little since January's rockbottom prices, it's still far from covering the farmer's costs of production, which include labor, grain, fuel, fertilizer and seed, much of which is dependent on the price of fuel.
The price of grain hasn't gone down despite the big decline in demand for ethanol, a corn-based fuel, Lantagne said, because future contracts on the corn harvest were high and new harvests are still coming.
Lantagne said that farmers all over the state were calling in extension agents to help them "crunch the numbers" to see if they can stay in business.
"It's tough on all the folks," Lantagne said. "It's tough on the farmers, and it's tough on people who are trying to help them."
"It's a distressing story, a disturbing story," he said. "There are a lot of stressed people out there."
Munzing acknowledged the difficult times for the farmers. She said that the celebration was to help people understand the value of the farming community, and the importance of locally-grown food. The Strolling of the Heifers has raised about $50,000 that have been given as direct loans to farmers, while spending three times that on programs in Vermont schools to educate students about agriculture. Sanders recently secured the organization a $89,000 federal grant to help connect youth with agriculture.
"People are understanding more and more the connection between where their food comes from," she said. "This event nurtures appreciation."
susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com
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