Vt. dairy skull session to convene
Toolbox
Staff Report - Published: October 15, 2009
RANDOLPH – Agriculture leaders from across the state will try to chart a path out of a financial morass that threatens to undo the state's dairy industry.
On Friday, at Vermont Technical College in Randolph, dairy farmers, cooperative officials and industry experts will discuss the forces behind the dairy crisis and potential solutions to the problem. The Vermont Farmers' Forum for Dairy Farm Survival, which runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the VTC Campus Center, is billed as a skull session for anyone interested in rescuing Vermont's struggling dairy industry.
"One summer evening I was driving through beautiful farmland in Vernon and thought – this is all at stake right now," says Howard Fairman, who coordinated the conference. "I'm hoping we'll have a thorough discussion of the current situation and what some alternative proposals are. And, if we're lucky, some ideas will emerge that people feel are worth pursuing."
The event will include panelists from major dairy cooperatives, the Department of Agriculture, and several dairy farmers. Amanda St. Pierre — a Richford dairy farmer and member of the grassroots coalition Dairy Farmers Working Together — said the forum is an opportunity to pitch the growth-management strategy her organization has identified as a solution to the boom-bust price cycles that precipitated the current industry crisis.
"We're still getting some resistance from leadership at many of the cooperatives," St. Pierre said. "We're hoping the more support they hear for this concept, the better chance we'll have of them coming on board."
Pierre said farmer-led discussions like the one scheduled for Friday offer the best hope for effective policy reforms.
"We're building support at a grassroots level from the dairy farmers experiencing this situation," St. Pierre said. "We're working from the ground up."
Fairman said all are welcome for Friday's forum, especially farmers. The event is free and requires no pre-registration.
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