Deadline Looms For Renewal Of Dairy Compact

PRESTON (AP) — Connecticut’s dairy farmers are on edge as a deadline nears for Congress to decide whether to renew the New England Dairy Compact.

Some farmers say dairies would be forced out of business if lawmakers do not continue the compact, which sets minimum prices that dairy farmers receive for their product.

“It’s going to be a sad deal if they don’t,” said state Rep John Mordasky, D-Stafford Springs, a dairy farmer for 52 years before shipping his 66 cows to his son’s Vermont farm a year ago.

The compact sets a $16.94 minimum price per 100 pounds of milk that processors must pay New England dairy farmers, regardless of the national going rate. The renewal deadline is September 30.

Preston dairyman Gerry Grabarek told the Norwich Bulletin that eliminating the law would cause “financial stress that would just hasten the exit of dairy farmers in Connecticut.”

But opponents say the law is unfair to milk producers west of the Mississippi, who must pay costly freight charges to ship milk to the populous Eastern Seaboard.

“Midwest farmers want a part of the New England market, which is ridiculous,” said Mordasky. “The consumers are here [in New England] and the milk gets to them fresher.”

If the national price for milk is $16 per 100 pounds, for example, the compact requires milk processors to pay New England farmers that 94-cent differential.

The threshold “makes a big difference when the price is low, which is about nine months of the year,” Grabarek said.

The processors still could buy milk from Midwestern farms for the $16 rate, but when shipping charges are tacked on, the total cost is usually higher than the $16.94 being paid to compact farmers.

“It would be extremely disappointing if the compact is not renewed, because it is a very, very important way to stabilize milk prices, especially in winter when prices go down,” said Connecticut State Farm Bureau lobbyist Bonnie Burr.

Burr and her colleagues are lobbying Congress to renew the legislation and possibly expand it to include New York and New Jersey.

Mordasky said doing away with the compact would break dairy farmers.

“It takes a special type of person to be a dairy farmer,” he said. “It takes a commitment, like getting married. You’ve got to be there milking every morning and every night, seven days a week.”