Statement of Mark Winne at the regular monthly meeting of the Northeast Dairy Compact Commission on August 8, 2001

Good Morning. My name is Mark Winne, I am the director of the Hartford Food System in Hartford. Welcome to Connecticut if you’re not from Connecticut. I’d like to thank Commissioner Ferris for inviting me, and thank you Madam Chairman and guests and members of the Commission.

I’m really here, I suppose, as a consumer advocate. A consumer advocate for agriculture throughout the region, not just Connecticut. My message is really quite simple. I think like every other issue facing our region’s agriculture, dairy farming must have a broad and active base on non-agricultural support if it’s going to survive. I mean that very seriously. We all have to reach out very aggressively to a broad range of interests if we are going to convince a region that is largely non-agricultural to support our work.

Now why does my organization, The Hartford Food System, care about this? Well, we primarily work with lower income folks in the city of Hartford. That’s been our job for 25 years now. We’ve started farmers’ markets, we’ve developed new market opportunities in our school systems for locally grown food, we actually run a farm ourselves – a community supported farm where a percentage of our produce goes to low income communities. We are particularly concerned about the future of agriculture in Connecticut.

We’re not sure that if we keep on going down the road we’re going down we’re going to end up with a viable agricultural base in the state. So for us it’s a matter of making sure our food supply will be secure in the long run and we need to link that concern to the preservation of agriculture, the preservation of farming as a viable activity, and the preservation of our working lands.

As an advocate for low-income families I’ve witnessed and participated in to some extent discussions about the Compact and particularly the Compact and alleged price increases resulting from the Compact on low-income communities. I have to say I’ve seen nothing that has been more disingenuous in the past arguments anyway of Compact opponents when they attack the Compact for its alleged adverse impact on low impact consumers. I find that somewhat objectionable. In fact I’ve likened it in the past to certain terrorist groups who have used children as screens when combating civil forces.

What’s notable about the Compact has been the way it’s actually addressed the way of two very significant groups: the WIC program (the Women, Infants and Children program) and the National School Lunch Program. It’s admirable that that has been taken into consideration. I’m not sure we could find another price support program or commodity program that has done just that. So I think you should all congratulate yourselves for putting the nutritional needs of low income families on the table as part of the work that you’re doing to address agriculture.

About three years ago I was asked by the Maryland Department of Agriculture to submit testimony on the behalf of the Compact. At that time the issue was being debated in their legislature, and I did just that. For your information I have a copy of that letter that I sent.

(Letter attached)

I did say that the Hartford Food System is concerned about the cost of food for low-income communities as much as we’re concerned about the long-term viability of farming in our northeast region. In fact, we view the problems facing both consumers and producers as inextricably related. We cannot only consider the needs of one sector without considering the needs of the other sectors. To that end the Hartford Food System has established numerous programs over the past 20 years to make highly nutritious food more available and affordable to low-income groups while at the same time creating new market opportunities for farmers.

Another organization that I work with in Connecticut that’s called, “End Hunger Connecticut,” a traditional anti-hunger organization that often works for increased spending on food assistance programs designed to help low-income people from food stamps to WIC to school nutrition, is also an active supporter of the Compact.

An organization I’m also working with now, The Active Lands Alliance, is an example of how we can try to reach out more aggressively and more broadly to non-agricultural interests for agricultural purposes. The Working Lands Alliance is actually comprised of over 100 organizations in the state of Connecticut. There are environmental groups, planning groups, anti-hunger and food security organizations. I have a list so I don’t have to sit here and check them all off for you.

(List attached)

We’ve been very concerned about the loss of farmland in this state. That’s linked in part to the viability of agriculture. We found we needed to build a broader base of support if we were going to preserve farmland. Hence we established this large coalition with its multiple interests, groups seeing different reasons to preserve agriculture. They liked open space, that was important. They liked the economic contribution agriculture made to their communities, the quality of life in those communities, the quality of life not just in the individual communities but also throughout the state. The Working Lands Alliance saw all of the environmental benefits. Yes, we did argue that preserving farmland is another way to preserve open space but we didn’t stop there. We had to recognize that we’re talking about preserving open land and real farms that that if you don’t have a working farmer on the farmland, it’s not farmland.

What we’ve done over the past two years is work fairly aggressively in our state legislature to increase funding for our states conservation program. We’ve had some notable successes. We’re very happy to have been working with Commissioner Ferris and the governor’s office and this, and I think we can now say that Connecticut’s farmland preservation program is back at work and beginning to save more and more farmland every day.

What we recognized when we started the alliance was that consumers would support farmland preservation. The University of Connecticut conducted an opinion pole that sampled 600 residents and they found that 90 percent of the population they surveyed supported farmland preservation. They supported the rural character and the open character of open space. We found between 60 and 70 percent of the respondents felt that they would spend more money to buy locally grown food if they knew about it if they knew where it was and they knew it was locally produced.

One finding that was really interesting is that people actually visited farms more frequently than they visited our state beaches and than they visit our state parks. So visiting a farm was actually part of their leisure activity.

But their support, primarily for open land, shows a perhaps romantic attachment to an ideal they have of farming. That the public doesn’t see the reality or the economics associated with agriculture today. As long as they’re getting food they think they have food security and they may not necessarily care deeply about where it comes from. I can assure you they don’t understand the complexities of milk pricing or how the dairy compact operates. But I do think that it’s incumbent upon us: consumer advocates, commissioners, dairy commissioners, dairy farmers and others to try to educate the consumer and the general public about the issues of dairy pricing, of the Compact and more importantly the future of agriculture and why we need to take special economic measures to ensure its viability in the future.

So let’s ask ourselves if we’re building the strongest alliances possible with non-agricultural interests. Are we reaching out to them and doing all that we can to make sure that people understand what’s going on with agriculture throughout the region? Are we truly passionate about the cause and are we conveying that passion to others?

I would ask you, and I don’t know the answer to this, is your lunch today going to be locally produced? Is it coming from this region? Did anybody ever ask? Did anyone ever sit down with the food service department in this hotel and ask them if they are able to produce locally supplied food? When we get involved in a conference, we do that. Food service directors hate us, they don’t want to see us coming. We always talk to them about how we can do that. How can we get a few Connecticut apples, maybe some milk? Surprisingly, they like the idea and they actually can be very cooperative.

At the state level, are we supporting farmland preservation programs, agriculture viability programs and marketing programs as strongly as we need to? These are other legs of the stool that are going to have an impact on agriculture around the region. Are we recognizing and embracing the many other non-agricultural interests who are actual, natural and potential allies for farm preservation and farm viability throughout the state.

There is a tremendous depth of support for agriculture but it has to be realized by those of us who have the most direct stake in agriculture. It’s not going to be those for whom agriculture is perhaps a second thought. We have a cheap food supply in this country, it’s readily available, it’s inexpensive, it’s convenient and unfortunately we have an indifferent public all too often when it comes to agricultural issues. So we’re going to have to do a lot more to jazz up the concerns and the participation of the larger community.

In the meantime you can count on the support of organizations like the Hartford Food System, the Working Lands Alliance, End Hunger Connecticut. We’re going to be working with others around the state of Connecticut to make sure that our policy makers know of our support, the consumer’s support and in particular the low-income consumer support for the Dairy Compact. Thank you very much. Hart