Letter to the Hon. Sonny Perdue, Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture - Governor Mills and Commissioner Beal Urge USDA to Finalize Origin of Livestock Rules Latest push calls for maintaining vital markets and providing needed relief for Maine organic dairy farmers

Letter

Dear Secretary Perdue:

We write to urge you to finalize the National Organic Program's (NOP) 2015 proposed Origin of Livestock rule which greatly impacts the markets and viability of Maine dairy farmers.

We continue to be deeply troubled by what is happening to the dairy industry. According to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, commercial milk operations in Maine dropped from 367 in 2012 to 286 in 2017, a decrease of 22 percent in 5 years. In Maine and across the county, dairy farmers are struggling to keep their businesses open because of a plethora of challenging issues, such as unpredictable markets resulting in low payments to farmers, high costs of production, labor issues, and extremely low profit margins. At the same time, the demand for the organic market continues to increase and nationally, the number of organic farms increased from 14,326 to 18,166 between 2012 and 2017 and the total value of organic sales increased 57 percent, from 3.1 billion to 7.2 billion. Yet, recent issues with oversupply in other parts of the country directly impacts the viability of Maine organic dairy farms, as over 25 percent of our commercial dairy farms are selling to organic processors.

On average, Maine organic dairy farmers spend $600-$1,300 more per calf than farmers who raise calves conventionally. They follow strict rules and guidelines and are greatly concerned that a few bad actors in other parts of the country are taking advantage of the organic system by diverging from organic standards. The proposed rules would help clarify the standards regarding the transition of conventional dairy cows to organic and the management of breeder stock on organic livestock farms.

Finalizing the proposed rule is an immediate action that the USDA can take to provide much needed relief to dairy farmers. The industry has overwhelmingly supported these changes for over a decade, including thousands of public comments that are on the record in support of the proposed rulemaking.

We are grateful to have the support of the rest of the Maine delegation on this issue, who have supported language requests which would require the USDA to finalize the proposed rule within 180 days of enactment, in addition to incorporating the comments and feedback from the public during the rulemaking process.

On behalf of the Maine dairy industry, we urge you to take immediate action to finalize the proposed Origin of Livestock Rule and to not waste any more valuable time by proposing new rules to consider.

Furthermore, we would also like to take this opportunity to call for consistent and fair application of all NOP rules, particularly the Access to Pasture rule. The inconsistent enforcement of this rule disadvantages those farmers who adhere to it and harms the organic market and integrity of the NOP itself. There are many stresses that farmers face, and lax or improper application of the NOP rules should not be one of them.

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