Farmers’ concerns raised at Legislative Day event

NEW MIDWAY — Federal government officials’ representatives received an earful recently from local farmers and agriculture stakeholders.
The 2013 annual Legislative Day, sponsored by the Frederick County Pomona Grange, Frederick County Soil Conservation and Frederick County Farm Bureau, and held Feb. 9 at the New Midway fire hall, was the local ag community’s opportunity to let local, state and federal government officials know about issues that concern them.

The farmers’ concerns were many.

Government regulations that negatively affect farmers’ bottom lines were a sore spot for the producers. Several farmers told representatives for Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, that many elected officials know little to nothing about agriculture, yet they are making rules and regulations with no knowledge of how those rules affect farm life.

Dairy farmer Robert Ramsburg said farmers represent only 11 1/2 percent of the population, but they feed 100 percent of the population.

“We don’t have a lot of political clout but we should, based on what we do. We’re being squeezed and regulated out of business,” Ramsburg said.

People who make rules for agriculture should live on a farm for at least a week, Thurmont orchardist Robert Black said.

Immigration rules make it difficult for workers he has used — some for 10 years — to return annually for harvest, Black said, and that is unfathomable in an age of computers that can easily identify workers who return to particular farms.

“We need these guys for hands-on work, and we need them in a timely fashion,” Black said, adding that the county’s dairy industry depends on non-American labor.

Lisa Gaver, co-owner of Gaver Farm in Mount Airy, said farmers want a balanced approach to solving the country’s problems.

“We are asked to pay more and more, yet the country’s deficit continues to grow,” Gaver said. “I hear you say we’re cutting spending, but I haven’t heard anybody say they’re cutting their salaries. I’m a dairy farmer, and we are ruled and regulated to death.

“We make what we make, and if we find our spending is more, we have to internalize what’s wrong and deal with it.”

Farmers know they have to respect the land and the animals, dairy farmer Barbara Crum said.

“I get so tired of working seven days a week to feed ungrateful and disrespectful people,” Crum said. She finds it upsetting when she hears people say they get their food from the grocery store.

“I just want to do my job and be left alone,” Crum said.–

Keeping the Chesapeake Bay clean was another concern for the producers.–

New Market grain farmer Gareth Harshman said cleaning up the bay will be an ongoing process. It will not happen in a few years.

Delegate Kelly Schulz said she has seen an increase in regulations governing farmers, and unlike the Free State’s neighbors, Maryland has surpassed the Environmental Protection Agency’s requirements for cleaning the Chesapeake Bay.

“Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Virginia have not, so my question is, what’s the effort to work with our neighbors to ensure they are doing their share?” Schulz said. “We have surpassed everything we were asked to do, but we continue to clean up everybody’s mess.”

Cuts in the farm bill being discussed in Washington seem to affect small farmers — people on the bottom of the economic ladder, Harshman said.

“The trough is getting empty guys, and there’s got to be a time when citizens don’t have to depend on government for food stamps, housing and on and on,” Harshman said.

Gaver said the new farm bill needs a policy that ties cost to production.

“We see an expansion of insurance programs that benefits insurance companies more than farmers,” Gaver said.

Local farmers pay money to travel to Washington annually to meet with federal officials, Crum said, “yet we are not allowed to see our representatives. I’m sorry we’re killing the messenger, but that’s the truth.”

Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins echoed several farmers, saying he was a little disappointed that two newly elected representatives, Van Hollen and Rep. John Delaney, were not present to meet the farmers and acquaint themselves with local farmers’ plight.

Every person in Frederick County can vote against the newly elected federal government officials, Ramsburg told the representatives, but it won’t make a difference because of redistricting.

Ann Humphrey, constituent services representative for Van Hollen, said she was taking notes as fast as she could to share the farmers’ concerns with her boss. Robin Summerfield, who heads Cardin’s Western Maryland office, called for a meeting of local farmers from Frederick, Carroll and Howard counties to hash out key concerns to be communicated to his boss.

“The Congressman wants to work with you and do whatever he can on your behalf,” Humphrey said. “It’s a democracy. We will not always agree but he wants to hear you.”