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September 2009 - NH Dairy Farmers Partner with Stop and Shop

A partnership between Granite State Dairy Promotion and Stop and Shop will educate consumers on brands local NH dairy farmers contribute to.

What started in the Exeter Stop and Shop as a small promotional partnership, quickly developed into an arrangement with all six Stop and Shop locations throughout NH. The plan; hang banners, shelf talkers, vestibule clings and point of sale materials in all 6 Stop and Shop stores. The signage will identify brands that contain, in part, NH dairy product.

“I get hundreds of calls and emails asking where NH milk is sold,” said Amy Hall, Director of GSDP. “Although not a tough question to answer, there are only a handful of farms that process and bottle their own milk. Many of these farms are not within traveling distance for consumers,” added Hall.

“Milk is a regional product. NH milk, as we know, gets combined at the plant with milk from surrounding states. It’s a matter of informing consumers what brands NH dairy farmers supply product to. This couldn’t have happened at a better time. Our farms are in crisis and consumers want to buy NH dairy. This campaign will send a clear message to shoppers,” said Hall.

All milk is healthy. All milk is packed with 9 essential vitamins and nutrients. The campaign is not about favoring one brand over another. It’s not about favoring one state over another. It’s about giving consumers what they want. In this case, consumers want to support their local dairy farmers. Stop and Shop is a valued partner in making this happen.

"Stop and Shop and our associates are committed to serve the communities we live and work in. Whether it is our involvement with the New Hampshire Food Bank, work with local youth organizations or the recent donation of over $35,000 to local schools though our A+ Bonus program, we have a long history of supporting our communities. Working with Granite State Dairy Promotions to help build local dairy sales seemed like the next natural step,” Said Shawn Lynch, Stop and Shop District Manager.

Stop and Shop approved all banners and signage last week. The USDA has also given GSDP a green light. “Once we’ve worked out final logistics and pricing, I hope to have banners installed by August,” said Hall. Stop and Shop has six NH stores; Exeter, Bedford, Hudson, Milford and 2 in Manchester.

Sept 14, 2009 - Program asks consumers to help New England farmers

By Dave Graham, Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Vt.—Three New England states are urging consumers to chip in and help save the region's dairy farms, which are struggling with record-low prices being paid for their milk.
Agriculture officials and farmers from Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts gathered Monday at a dairy farm in Richmond to launch the Keep Local Farms program.

Organizers have set up a Web site—at http://www.keeplocalfarms.org—for people to make contributions, which will be divided among farmers.

Under the program, they're urging universities and other institutions to charge a little extra for dairy products in their cafeterias, with the proceeds going to farmers. The University of Vermont is the first to sign on.

And organizers hope within the next year to launch a co-branding effort that would put labels on dairy products and ask consumers to pay premiums for milk, cheese and other dairy goods, with the proceeds going to struggling dairy farmers.

The aim of the program is to help stop a trend in which New England has lost two-thirds of its dairy farms, down to about 1,880, since 1990. Many farmers say they have left because a highly complex federal pricing system has failed to keep pace with costs.

The pricing system, which dates from the 1930s, sets a national floor price that farmers are paid for their milk, then tweaks it to respond to supply and demand in the market and different costs faced by farmers in different regions.

Critics say it does not do enough to account for higher costs for farmers in the Northeast, who face long supply lines for feed and fuel, cold winters and a shorter feed-growing season than other parts of the country.

Speakers at Monday's event pointed to a sad irony in which consumer demand for local produce is taking off when the largest part of New England agriculture is withering.

Farmers are getting about $11.40 per hundred pounds of milk, down from $18.72 last year, officials said, attributing much of the change to declining exports amid the global recession. Put another way, farmers are getting 97 cents for a gallon of milk that costs $1.80 on average to produce. Some stores price milk at $5 or more per gallon.

Even farmers who sell out are struggling to pay off their debts, said Rob Wheeler, who with his family milks about 60 Jersey cows and taps maple trees for syrup on his 360-acre farm in Wilmington, a small picturesque town ringed by mountainous countryside in the southern part of the state.

"Even the most financially sound dairy operations are in a tough situation," Wheeler said. "It's not a pretty picture for a life's work."

Officials said they hope to appeal to consumers' growing taste for local foods, pitching dairy products from anywhere in the six-state New England region as local to consumers within it. They also hope to appeal to residents' love for New England's scenery, pointing to farmers' role in keeping land undeveloped and vistas open.

"It would mean a real change to our landscape in New Hampshire and all of New England if we were to lose a significant part of our dairy industry," said Lorraine Stuart Merrill, New Hampshire's agriculture commissioner and a dairy farmer.

The commissioner of the Department of Agricultural Resources in Massachusetts, Scott Soares, said the most critical part of the dairy aid plan launched Monday—meaning the most lucrative to farmers—is likely to be the co-branding effort because it will put the issue of dairy pricing directly before supermarket shoppers.

"It's a response to what we have heard from consumers wanting to pay more for milk if they have the opportunity and the assurance that that additional fee is going to go to the dairy farms directly," Soares said of the co-branding program.

But Vermont's director of dairy policy, Diane Bothfeld, said it would take some time to get any of the major brands of milk on board.

"It's a big step for someone to change their logo, to reach out and start co-branding with a program that's brand new," Bothfeld said.

She said it's hoped that in the coming months the program will gain "more credibility, more momentum, to be able to convince processors to co-brand their product."

But even if the program works as well as anyone hopes, it's not the long-term solution for the troubles facing dairy farmers in New England and nationally, said Roger Allbee, Vermont's secretary of agriculture.

"Obviously there needs to be a change in federal dairy policy, because it's broken, it's antiquated and it needs a fix," he said.

In July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would temporarily raise the price paid for milk and cheddar cheese through its dairy price support program.

March 2008 - Book traces the history, economics and current issues facing New Hampshire’s dairy industry

Concord, NH - On Wednesday, March 26th, Governor John Lynch and the Executive Council were thanked for their support of the dairy industry and presented copies of The History and Economics of the New Hampshire Dairy Industry. More...