Op-Ed New Ag. action now

Author: Ken Van Hazinga

To Governor Jim Douglas,

With the resignation of Steve Kerr as Secretary of Agriculture, it is now up to you to appoint a new Secretary of Ag. Recently, this post, in recognition of its importance, has been raised from the level of Commissioner to Secretary, as a cabinet position. This fact, and the deep crisis in dairy agriculture at the present time, means that this appointment could be the most critical of the next two years. I have no one person as a candidate for this job, although many different names have come up in conversations with fellow farmers. Instead, I would like to ask you to go outside the usual criterium and set of applicants. This is no time to use past political loyalty, or service in the ag industrial system that has lead directly to this crisis, to fill this position.

The new Secretary is going to have to be able to speak to and for all of the many types of agriculture in this state and heal any false divisions caused by corporate ag. public relations campaigns. The new Secretary must be a peace maker and a unifier.

The first major crisis is that of disastrously low milk prices in the conventional dairy industry. This is the result of a failed policy of the last 50 years of "get big or get out." Large dairies sound like they are efficient, but when all the hidden social and environmental costs are counted, they don't fare as well. One thing that might help in the short run is to change the trucking charges for milk so that the milk companies pay for the hauling of milk to the processing plants, rather than the farmers.

Other long-term strategies that should be looked into are the safe retail sales of raw milk to a willing public, and sales of farm-slaughtered meat. These would help small diversified farms start and grow.

What the state needs is more farmers, not just more cows, and these programs help foster the starting and prosperity of new farms. Another area of concern is the pressure of programs from the federal government, such as Premise Registration, in which places where animals are kept, down to the scale of one chicken, must be registered with the government. This will lead to the National Animal Identification System in which individual animals must have a microchip implanted so that all movements can be tracked. These programs have little public support and are very detrimental to the increasing number of farmers that have the vision of a direct link between consumers and farmers as the future of Vermont agriculture.

The new secretary should also be someone whom both you and the legislature can work with. The new secretary must have an open mind and listen to all sides, not just recite the party line. This is a chance to make a statesman-like choice; a choice that recognizes that some segments of Vermont agriculture are in deep crisis while others are prospering. We can continue business as usual and it will get worse, or visionary changes can be started and followed through with, and a strong and prosperous agriculture can arise to help strengthen the whole community of Vermont.

Ken Van Hazinga
Orwell, VT