Legislators who made up the panel to address concerns of the Susquehanna County Farm Bureau on March 21 included (above, from left) Susquehanna County commissioner Dave Darrow, state Rep. Jonathan Fritz, state Sen. Lisa Baker, commissioner Alan Hall, U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, and commissioner Bob McNamara.
Story and photo by Rick Hiduk
(originally published in the Susquehanna County Independent)
Members of the Susquehanna County Farm Bureau and various elected officials met at Montrose High School on March 21, just prior to the start of the 35th annual Susquehanna County Ag Day presented by the Penn State Cooperative Extension, members of which were also in attendance. Farm Bureau president Dave DeLeon offered welcoming remarks and first acknowledged the presence of Susquehanna County’s three commissioners, Dave Darrow, Alan Hall, and Bob McNamara. Other legislators who filtered in from earlier commitments in the morning included U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, PA Sen. Lisa Baker, and PA Rep. Jonathan Fritz.
Farm Bureau governmental relations director William Shay worked through an ambitious agenda, asking the panel for their insight on a number of issues at the county, state, and federal levels. Topics included farmland preservation, the need for a new federal Farm Bill, the Healthy Poultry Assistance and Indemnification Act, the Dairy Pride and Pricing Opportunity acts, wildlife and migratory bird management, and several questions dealing with transportation. And, as time for the meeting was fleeting, long-time Farm Bureau member and former state board district director Jim Barbour surprised those in attendance with news of yet a new danger to livestock.
Commissioner Dave Darrow provided an update on the formation of a new Farmland Presentation Board on which he and others serve under the direction of Susquehanna County planner Patti Peltz. Darrow’s comment that Farmland Preservation was handed over to the county by the Susquehanna County Conservation District because they “no longer wanted to do it” was challenged by Conservation District manager Jennifer Ramey, who maintained that the agency did not have the capacity to properly execute the program and turned it back to the county so that it could be done correctly.
Darrow agreed that Farmland Preservation is a complicated process that can take at least two years per case. “It’s a learning curve as well for us because we have a lot of new members,” he stated. “You have to be in an Ag Security Area at the township level first and meet additional criteria.”
Shay directed his questions to Rep. Meuser about the Federal Farm Bill set to expire in September. It was last updated in 2018. Meuser suggested that allocations through the Farm Bill to Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients that rose sharply during and since the pandemic were a key element in slowing progress on the legislation. “We believe there should be some kind of work requirements,” he stated, noting an increase in SNAP distributions from $65 billion to $150 billion since 2019. “We’d like to get that back to pre-COVID levels.”
Meuser also addressed the desire of dairy producers to get whole milk back into schools, tax reform for farmers, and shoring up crop insurance. Most importantly, he related, most members of the House Ag Committee chaired by Glen “GT” Thompson want to put the majority of decisions currently made by the committee back into the hands of local farm bureaus and ag producers. “Republicans and Democrats both know how important that is,” he added, citing U.S. senators Dave McCormick and John Fetterman as being bipartisan allies when it comes to agriculture, which is Pennsylvania’s number one industry. “We believe we will get it done before the August recess,” Mesuser told Shay.
On the topic of avian influenza and its effect on chicken and egg prices, Shay questioned the logic of having all poultry operations under the umbrella of HPAI, a relatively new but comprehensive strategy to curb the spread of the pathogenic disease, instead of just those operators whose birds text positive. The proposed Dairy Pride Act sparked another matter of contention as farmers struggle to maintain the integrity of their products while producers of soy, almond, rice and other alternative “milk” and “yogurt” are flooding the market. Meuser replied that both are priorities of Congress, offering, “We’ve got to have better plans than existed before.” As for moving forward the Dairy Pricing Opportunity Act, Meuser said, “I’m for it. Dairy pricing needs a certain level of stability. Canada protects its dairy farmers like they are gold, and we don’t.”
Transportation was addressed at the federal, state, and county levels, with Meuser responding first to Shay’s questions about federally mandated transportation and infrastructure plans that come to rural counties without funding. “I’m not happy with transportation allocations,” Meuser began, blaming the former administration for lack of oversight. Pennsylvania has received billions of dollars toward infrastructure improvements, “But it hasn’t come to my district and Susquehanna County,” he asserted.
Commissioner Hall agreed that the state representatives and senators do not have control of the funds either, “and rural areas get ignored.” If a new bridge is needed in Lackawanna County, elected officials beyond Scranton are told that there is no money left. “The commissioners have no say over it either. Legislators can advocate for us, and they do,” Hall stated. “But, at the end of the road, PennDOT is in control.”
“They’ve grown so big that they’ve isolated themselves from extraneous oversight in a dangerous way,” Rep. Fritz added, citing his days as a former commissioner in Wayne County. “We’re all fighting for the same money, and we started noticing that we weren’t getting our share.” Fritz said that he teamed up with Rep. Tina Pickett to demand an audit that exposed 15 years of underfunding. “Now that we have better management, we are getting caught up.” Fritz also suggested that the relationship between PennDOT and rural legislators is slowly improving.
Wildlife management as it relates to crop damage and chronic waste disease (CWD) in Pennsylvania’s deer herd drew comments from Fritz that the prevalence of CWD has been exagerated and that constituents should turn to the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) for the most accurate information. There have been no cases of CWD reported yet in Susquehanna County, he maintained, but there has been at least one confirmed case in neighboring Wyoming County.
DeLeon thanked the county commissioners for their ongoing support of the Farm Bureau when it comes to taking their concerns to the wildlife committee at the state level, noting that it has led to a better relationship between the Farm Bureau and the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Common goals include getting more licensed hunters into areas where deer populations are out of control and the issuance of more DMAP tags.
Fritz acknowledged the Farm Bureau as one of the most important and powerful lobbying groups in Harrisburg and said that the majority of PA House members are on their side. Sen. Baker echoed his sentiments, crediting the ongoing communication from the Farm Bureau for keeping them connected to the issues. “I voted for Sunday hunting last year with support from the Farm Bureau,” she related. “But I still have people complaining about the start of hunting (deer) on Saturday.”
On a related topic, Baker informed those in attendance that she is sponsoring legislation to provide body cameras for PGC and PA Fish and Boat officers and state park rangers, including deputies. “It will protect both the sportsmen and the officers if there is an issue,” she stated.
As the meeting wrapped up in favor of the legislators having some time to experience Ag Day and talk with constituents before leaving for other commitments, Jim Barbour held their attention for a few more minutes with information about the return to the area by black vultures, the slightly smaller but much more aggressive cousin of the common turkey vulture.
Barbour said that he has already lost two calves to vultures. Black vultures, he explained, have a method of viciously attacking the young cows from above – often gouging out their eyes – and leaving them defenseless against the turkey vultures that finish them off. Sheep have been targets in western Pennsylvania, he added. “We need to get them off the federal Migratory List so we can take care of it,” Barbour exclaimed. “You can’t shoot migratory birds, and the black vultures don’t stay on the ground for long.”
The panel looked stunned, with Rep. Meuser being the first to admit that this was news to him. Sen. Baker asked Barbour if he was seeking a regulatory response. Barbour replied that the issue should be taken up with the USDA before it gets any worse.