To preserve Vermont as we have known and would know it, Vermonters should save dairy farming landscapes, but we cannot save dairy farmers from themselves.

How can they stop racing each other into bankruptcy by producing too much raw milk? Cutting production seems to be the only way. Who will do it first? Who will try to hold out until others run out of money or resolve?

Instead, all dairy farmers could agree via their milk-marketing cooperatives to reduce their raw-milk production gradually by agreed percentages until they receive a profitable price for it. Holdouts could simply not be paid for their surplus production.

While dairy farmers are facing bankruptcy, processed milk and dairy products remain profitable as usual. A few dairy farms are producing them from their own raw milk instead of selling it, making its market price irrelevant.

Vermont is a premium brand with an exclusive seal of quality. Vermont farms, conventional and organic, existing and new, can survive, diversify and prosper by producing made-in-Vermont agricultural products for sale everywhere. The missing link is an exclusively Vermont farmers' cooperative providing expert, innovative, shared marketing and distribution, and perhaps shared production facilities when feasible.

Howard Fairman

Vernon