Farm Bureau reviews legislative issues with elected officials
BUFFALO TWP — The Butler County Farm Bureau reviewed agricultural funding in the state budget, a new state animal health laboratory, milk over-order premium reform, crop damage from deer and other issues Friday, Aug. 16, with elected officials during a legislative luncheon.
The event was held at Goldscheitter Christmas Tree Farm. U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th; state Sens. Elder Vogel Jr., R-47th, and Scott Hutchinson, R-21st; state Reps. Marci Mustello, R-11th, and Stephenie Scialabba, R-12th; and county commissioners Kim Geyer and Kevin Boozel joined more than a dozen farmers for the luncheon. The 6-acre farm has been producing Christmas trees for more than 34 years.
Farm bureau board member and government relations director William Thiele said the 10% increase in the state Department of Agriculture budget included in the recently signed state budget shows lawmakers believe agriculture is important.
Thiele noted the budget includes $31 million to help poultry farmers affected by the avian flu and $35.75 million for the Agriculture Conservation Assistance Program, which funds county conservation districts.
The assistance program funding is 71.5% of the $50 million budget allocation to the Clean Streams Fund, which also addresses stormwater runoff and abandoned mine drainage reclamation.
Geyer said the county has received $2 million for the conservation district from the program, but there are strings attached to the grants available to farmers.
Farmers have to match the amount of the grants they receive and pay prevailing wages to whoever they hire for their projects costing $25,000 or more, which drives up the cost of those projects, she said.
Geyer said $250,000 should be the project cost threshold for the prevailing wage requirement.
Thiele said he’s glad the budget includes funding for a new state animal health diagnostic laboratory.
The state had been vague about a location for the facility, saying only the site will be west of Interstate 99, he said.
Currently, the state operates three such laboratories that provide regulatory and diagnostic testing for veterinarians, farmers, animal owners, agribusinesses and regulatory agencies.
Butler and Lawrence counties are among many counties that want the lab built withing their boundaries, Thiele said.
Vogel said counties along the Interstate 79 corridor, including Butler, should unite and ask the Department of Agriculture to build the lab in one of those counties.
He said building the lab in Bedford County would not help farmers in Western Pennsylvania.
Vogel also reviewed Senate Bill 1297, which he introduced in July to reform the milk over-order premium system.
The bill would benefit dairy farmers by allowing the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board to collect the over-order premium on Class 1 fluid milk in the state and distribute it to farmers.
The calculated price of Class 1 produced and processed milk sold in Pennsylvania includes an over-order premium of $1 per hundred pounds of milk, according to the milk board.
Vogel said he plans to conduct an informational hearing on the bill sometime in October.
Thiele said the over-order premium has been an ongoing issue for years because it does not benefit all farmers, but he hopes the bill resolves the problem.
“This has been an issue, I think, for eons,” Thiele said.
The topics of crop damage caused by deer and Sunday hunting got many people talking.
James Thiele, who serves as a government relations director with his brother, William, said, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the state incurred more than $20 million in losses on corn and $15 million on soybeans due to wildlife, placing Pennsylvania among the top crop loss states in the country.
According to the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, skyrocketing operating costs and a decreasing number of hunters are creating a crop loss problem farmers can’t afford.
James Thiele said his family’s farm is enrolled in Pennsylvania Game Commission programs aimed at using hunters to reduce deer numbers on farms, but fewer hunters hunted on the farm than in past years.
He said the farm bureau supports bills pending in the state House and Senate that would increase hunting trespass penalties, streamline crop damage mitigation programs, require the game commission board to include a farmer and repeal the Sunday hunting prohibition.
“Be prepared to see a lot more Sundays for hunting if the bill passes,” Vogel said.
At least a few farms represented at the meeting said the game commission should be required to pay farmers’ premiums on crop insurance.
Bureau board member Evelyn Minteer said she and her daughter counted 30 deer Thursday evening in the soybean field behind her home.
She said more hunters and more places to hunt are needed. Programs should be in place in schools to get children interested in hunting, she said.
Adding to the deer population problem is the tendency of deer to retreat to areas near houses to avoid a hunter after the hunting season starts, Minteer said.
Some farmers said many hunters, including archery hunters, look for trophy bucks and do not hunt for female deer.
Geyer said a shortage of deer processors adds to the problem, especially in the fall when warm weather forces hunters to have their deer cooled down and processed quickly.
