Farm Country Stood by Trump. But the Shutdown Is Pushing It to Breaking Point.

Pam Moore’s dairy farm in Nichols, N.Y., is on the brink of financial ruin. “It has just been one thing after another, after another, after another,” Ms. Moore said. (Libby March photo- NYT

Jack Healy and Tyler Pager report for the New York Times

DENVER — In Georgia, a pecan farmer lost out on his chance to buy his first orchard. The local Farm Service Agency office that would have processed his loan application was shut down.In Wisconsin’s dairy country, a 55-year-old woman sat inside her new dream home, worried she would not be able to pay her mortgage. Her loan had come from an Agriculture Department program for low-income residents in rural areas, but all of the account information she needed to make her first payment was locked away in an empty government office.And in upstate New York, Pam Moore was feeding hay to her black-and-white cows at a small dairy that tottered on the brink of ruin. She and her husband had run up $350,000 in debt to keep the dairy running after 31 of their cows died of pneumonia, and their last lifeline was an emergency federal farm loan. But the money had been derailed by the government shutdown.“It has just been one thing after another, after another, after another,” Ms. Moore, 57, said.Farm country has stood by President Trump, even as farmers have strained under two years of slumping incomes and billions in losses from his trade wars. But as the government shutdown now drags into a third week, some farmers say the loss of crucial loans, payments and other services has pushed them — and their support — to a breaking point.Like this? Click to receive free updatesWhile many rural conservatives may loathe the idea of Big Government, farmers and the federal government are welded together by dozens of programs and billions of dollars in spending.Now, farmers and farm groups say that federal crop payments have stopped flowing. Farmers cannot get federally backed operating loans to buy seed for their spring planting, or feed for their livestock. They cannot look up new government data about beef prices or soybean yields to make decisions about planting and selling their goods in an ever-changing global market.“This is real,” said Jeff Witte, president of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture and New Mexico’s agriculture secretary. “You had farmers who were in the process of closing a loan or getting an operating loan. Now there’s nobody there to service those.”

John Myer, a farmer in Ovid, N.Y., said he needs the $15,000 owed to him under the trade bailout to pay his property taxes, which are due by the end of January.Photo:Libby March for The New York TimesAll week, Joe Schroeder has been listening to shutdown stories pouring into Farm Aid’s hotline. There was the cotton farmer who could not get disaster assistance to help him recover from Hurricane Michael. The woman in her 90s facing foreclosure on her family farm. The dairy farmer trying to make one last attempt to renegotiate her loan with the Farm Service Agency.“You cannot reach anybody,” Mr. Schroeder said.Mr. Trump is expected to address a largely friendly audience on Monday at the American Farm Bureau’s annual convention. Many farmers, including David Nunnery, 59, of Pike County, Miss., have stayed unflinchingly loyal to Mr. Trump and his demands for $5.7 billion for a border wall, even as the shutdown threatens their livelihood.“I may lose the farm, but I strongly feel we need some border security,” Mr. Nunnery said.But Davinder Singh, 41, the Georgia pecan farmer, said the border wall was not worth the price he had already paid — losing out on the chance to finally buy his own orchard instead of working other people’s land.“Why spend money on the wall?” he said. He just wanted the government to reopen — “as soon as possible.”Like this? Click to receive free updatesThe Agriculture Department had tried to blunt the effects by keeping local Farm Service Agency offices open through December. And it extended deadlines for farmers to apply for the administration’s $12 billion bailout for farmers hurt by Mr. Trump’s trade policies.States like Wisconsin, which lost at least 638 dairy farms last year, are particularly vulnerable.The new farm bill passed in December contained programs to help dairy farmers weather swings in the market, and to help farmers struggling with stress and depression get mental health services. But those programs cannot be put in effect during the shutdown, said Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin.“More uncertainty and more stress,” she said. “We can’t afford to wait months and months. We need to get this moving now.”In Manitowoc County, Wis., Michael Slattery, a grain farmer, is waiting on $9,000 — money the federal government owes him under its trade bailout and a conservation program for farmers who take steps to reduce erosion and runoff from their fields.

David Nunnery at his dairy farm in Pike County, Miss. (Emily Kask photo for the NY Times)Mr. Slattery said farmers needed these funds to make big off-season purchases such as seed, chemicals and diesel as they prepared for the planting season. But he said everything had ground to a standstill. The county Farm Service Agency committee cannot meet. Mr. Slattery, who is also an economist, said he cannot get any raw data to make farming forecasts.“We’re being played the stooge,” he said.In New York’s farming communities, the shutdown is heaping additional pain onto farmers after a year of tariff losses, destructive weather and labor shortages because of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns.In Ovid, N.Y., it has left John Myer seething at Mr. Trump as he waits for at least $15,000 owed to him under the trade bailout. Mr. Myer needs the money to pay his property taxes, which are due by the end of January. Mr. Myer, 64, filed his paperwork before the shutdown, but said no payments were being processed.“You could hardly call it a political stunt,” said Mr. Myer, who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. “It’s a personal power stance because he doesn’t really care about anything, I don’t think, besides himself.”This week, as Ms. Moore, the struggling dairy farmer, sipped coffee at Sallie’s Country Kitchen on Main Street in the 2,500-person town of Nichols, she said it felt like her financial problems were closing in.In a corner booth, she spotted a neighbor who had done $147.90 of yard work and trash hauling on her farm. She did not have enough money to pay him.With little money left for food, she went to a food pantry on Thursday afternoon, picking out frozen fruits and vegetables, pasta, bread, dried beans and some onions to cook when her 9-year-old grandson visited later in the week.“We just have to do what we have to do to get by,” she said.Jack Healy reported from Denver and Tyler Pager from Nichols, N.Y.

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Burlco Democrats want to chop county’s Pinelands rep

NJ PInelands wide aerial shot
“If Mr. Earlen can be replaced, I’ll be the first to vote to replace him,” Freeholder Director Tom Pullion said Wednesday during a board meeting packed with opponents of a controversial natural gas pipeline planned to run through northern Burlington County and a portion of the protected Pinelands region.

David Levinsky reports for the Burlington County Times
MOUNT HOLLY — The leader of the new Democratic-controlled Burlington County Board of Freeholders says the board is investigating its legal options for removing Sean Earlen (pictured at left) as the county’s representative on the New Jersey Pinelands Commission before his term expires.

“If Mr. Earlen can be replaced, I’ll be the first to vote tTom Pullion Burlington Freeholder chairman Democrat 2019o replace him,” Freeholder Director Tom Pullion (pictured at right) said Wednesday during a board meeting packed with opponents of a controversial natural gas pipeline planned to run through northern Burlington County and a portion of the protected Pinelands region.

The commission is responsible for overseeing development and land use in the Pinelands, an ecologically unique area of forests, fields, wetlands and bogs located in the heart of the nation’s most densely populated state. The agency’s 15 governing commissioners aren’t paid but are considered the front line protectors of     the region and its rare plants and animals   and pristine water supplies.
Seven of the commissioners are gubernatorial appointments that must also be approved by the state Senate, and seven are appointed by the governing bodies of each of the counties that encompass the Pinelands. The 15th member is a federal representative appointed by the U.S. secretary of the interior.
Earlen, who recently became chairman of the Burlington County Republican Committee, has served as the county’s appointed representative on the Pinelands Commission since August 2011 and has been the panel’s chairman since January 2017. He has come under fire from environmental groups and some residents since he voted in favor of approving two natural gas pipelines through the Pines, including the proposed by New Jersey Natural Gas slated to run through Burlington County.
The 30-mile line, known as the Southern Reliability Link, is planned to begin at a recently-built compressor station on the Chesterfield-Bordentown Township border and run west along County Routes 528 and 664 through Chesterfield, North Hanover, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and several towns in Monmouth and Ocean counties.
New Jersey Natural Gas has argued the pipeline is critical for enhancing the reliability of gas delivery to over a million customers, mostly in Ocean and Monmouth counties, because it will provide a second transmission feed in its territory. But opponents have waged an unrelenting battle against the project, arguing that the close proximity of the compressor station and pipeline route to residences and businesses in Bordentown Township, Chesterfield and North Hanover will pose a significant safety and pollution risk.
Even before Earlen cast his vote supporting the line, opponents were lobbying the freeholder board to replace him with a more strict conservationist. However, the freeholders voted in December 2017 to re-appoint him to a new term.
At the time, the freeholder board was under complete Republican control and the freeholders argued he deserved re-appointment. Officials cited the commission’s move to designate appropriate roads for motor vehicle use in Wharton State Forest, as well as decisions to give the long-awaited approval for widening Route 530 in Pemberton Township, Pemberton Borough and Southampton and improvements in how the panel reviews applications related to homeowners and businesses in the county.

The GOP freeholders also said that while the board opposed the proposed route of the Southern Reliability Link pipeline near homes and businesses in Chesterfield and North Hanover, that the project itself was worthwhile because it would improve resilience of gas supply to New Jersey Natural Gas’ service territory, which includes a portion of the joint base.

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Since then Republican control of county government has slipped away. Pullion and fellow Democrat Balvir Singh joined the board in January 2018 after winning seats in the November 2017 election. They were joined by two more Democrats this month, which flipped the board’s majority to Democrats for the first time in over 40 years.
With Democrats now in control of the freeholders, opponents of the pipeline turned out in large numbers to Wednesday’s board meeting to urge the new majority to replace Earlen on the commission. They also called on the freeholders to rescind a resolution approved by the Republican majority in December to allow County Routes 528 and 664 to close during pipeline construction.
Both issues are tricky for the board though, as Earlen’s term does not expire until August 2020 and New Jersey Natural Gas is involved in ongoing litigation with the county over its road construction policy.

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NJ Pinelands protectors want more from Gov. Murphy

Leah Mishkin reports for NJTV News:

At more than a million acres, the Pinelands occupies most of Southern New Jersey. In 1979, Gov. Brendan Byrne signed the Pinelands Protection Act to preserve hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and streams.
“One of the principal reasons was that we have an aquifer, called the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer, a huge body of clean water underground that’s used to support agriculture and people’s water supply,” said Carleton Montgomery, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.
But the annual report from the Pinelands Preservation Alliance says that supply is under threat.
“In many places, it’s being overexploited and we are losing that water supply,” he said.
Montgomery says the Pinelands Commission — the state agency in charge of protecting the Pinelands — is failing to do just that when it comes to the aquifer.
“Pinelands Commission needs to move quickly to reform its regulations about water allocations, about the withdrawal of water from the aquifer,” Montgomery said.
The report gave the commission good grades for protecting rare roadside plants, its report on the vulnerability of ponds and its educational programs. But the report is not all positive.
“Two of the worst decisions the Pinelands Commission has ever made in its 40-year history were its approval of two new natural gas pipelines through Pineland conservation areas,” Montgomery said.

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NJ Controller rips Christie’s EDA on lax finance oversight


Politico’s Matt Friedman reports today:

In an absolutely scathing audit released yesterday, the state comptroller outlined the lack of oversight and standards in how the Economic Development Authority holds companies to the job creation goals they’re supposed to meet. Often, the state has just been taking corporations’ word for it that they’re creating the jobs without a concrete system to check them. The comptroller audited a small portion of the incentives awarded and found millions in overpayments and other problems.
This is the legacy of former Gov. Christie as well as Senate President Sweeney, and for that matter, Lt. Gov. Oliver, who was Assembly speaker when the Legislature passed the 2013 law to vastly expand the state tax credit programs. The board members of the EDA over the years bear responsibility. And perhaps we should have seen this coming. The Economic Opportunity Act of 2013’s biggest champion wound up resigning in disgrace over an unrelated case shortly after it was passed. And that bill had been rewritten at the last minute with sweetener after sweetener for South Jersey. One of the agency’s leaders, Michele Brown, was a first and foremost a Christie loyalist. Another, Melissa Orsen, left to take a job at South Jersey Industries, which had been awarded a $12 million incentive.
Sure, you can argue that it’s not the law that failed but its implementation. But you could just as easily argue that in vastly expanding the program, lawmakers should have included stricter enforcement standards.
The tax credit programs are set to expire in July. Sweeney indicated recently that he’d like to pretty much keep them as is. Murphy wants big changes. It’s hard to imagine at this point that Sweeney could get a veto-proof majority to push through a bill that doesn’t make major changes.

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Ocean County GOP boss Gilmore indicted for tax evasion

Ocean County Republican Chairman George R. Gilmore, who is also chairman of the Ocean County Board of Elections, compares signatures to determine the validity of a ballot in November.Ocean County Republican Chairman George R. Gilmore, who is also chairman of the Ocean County Board of Elections, compares signatures to determine the validity of a ballot in November. (Photo: David Gard)Jean Mikle and Erik Larsen report for the Asbury Park PressOcean County Republican Chairman George R. Gilmore has been indicted by a federal grand jury on tax evasion charges,  First Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig said.Gilmore, 69, of Toms River, was charged in a six-count indictment with one count of income tax evasion for the calendar years 2013, 2014 and 2015; two counts of filing false tax returns for calendar years 2013 and 2014; failing to collect, account for, and pay over payroll taxes for two quarters in 2016, and making false statements on a 2015 loan application submitted to Ocean First Bank, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.According to the indictment, Gilmore spent more than $2.5 million on personal expenses from about January 2014 to December 2016, even though he admitted to owing federal taxes for each of those years.Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Ocean County GOP Chairman

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Ocean County GOP Chairman George Gilmore. (Photo: Erik Larsen, staff photo)
His purchases included:  $440,000 in antiques, artwork and collectibles, including animal tusks; more than $80,000 for model trains; more than $100,000 for Colorado vacations; over $700,000 for mortgages and related expenses on five different properties he owned, and more than $380,000 for construction and remodeling of his homes, which included a swimming pool, a pool cabana, a slate roof, marble flooring and mahogany and cherry wood fireplace mantels, among other features.During that same time period, Gilmore borrowed more than $1.7 million from professional associates, friends and law firm clients, and also obtained more than $572,000 from the cash-out portion of a home mortgage loan that he refinanced, according to the indictment. Like this? Click to receive free updatesGilmore referred all questions about the indictment to his Chatham-based lawyer, Kevin H. Marino. “After serving grand jury subpoenas seeking evidence of political corruption on every town with which Mr. Gilmore conducts business—literally for years—the United States Attorney’s Office could manage only this lame, ersatz tax case,” Marino said.”George Gilmore faithfully reported every penny of his income, repeatedly expressed his intention to pay his taxes together with interest and penalties, freely conceded that he was unable to pay his taxes in a timely fashion, and shared with the government the reasons why,” Marino said.Also according court documents:

  • • From January 2014 to December 2016, Gilmore used the law firm’s bank accounts to pay more than $2 million worth of personal expenses, including obtaining checks to cash and cash advances on a corporate credit card. Gilmore falsely classified payments as “shareholder loans” instead of income to him.
  • • On Oct. 16, 2014, Gilmore sent the IRS a $493,526 check as payment for his 2013 taxes despite having no more than $2,500 in his personal bank account at the time. Gilmore’s check bounced and he never resubmitted payment in lieu of the bounced check.
  • From November 2014, when he was notified by the IRS concerning the bounced check, to the end of December 2014, Gilmore spent more than $80,000 toward the construction of his home and to purchase artwork, antiques, and collectibles and more than $25,000 in mortgages and related expenses for five real estate properties that he owed.
  • • From November 2014 to October 2015, Gilmore falsely represented to the IRS collections officer that he would make partial payments to the IRS for his outstanding tax liability, but made none.
  • • Gilmore filed false tax returns for 2013 and 2014, which under-reported his actual income from the law firm.
  • From about January 2014 through December 2016,

    • Gilmore, one of the most powerful Republicans in the state, also serves as chairman of the Ocean County Board of Elections. Read the full storyLike this? Click to receive free updates

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    New Jersey’s Dairy Farms Are in Crisis

    Jersey dairy farms are folding at an alarming rate. From a peak of over 500, there are now just 47. Among other factors, it costs more to produce milk than farmers can sell it for.

    Lambertville—a family-run business, like most Jersey dairy farms—has been milking cows for 109 years. Turning a profit from pails of milk keeps getting harder. Photo credit: Matt Rainey
    Jill P. Capuzzo writes for New Jersey Monthly

    Since he started milking his neighbors’ cows at age 10, Jared Weeks knew he wanted to be a dairy farmer. At 12, he scraped together $2,100 to buy his first cow, a Brown Swiss. At 19, he rented land in Hunterdon County, near where he grew up, and bought 15 cows.
    Today, Weeks has a herd of about 200 cows on 250 acres in Ringoes. He owns 82 of the acres and rents the rest from his wife’s family and from other owners who benefit from a farm-assessment tax cut on the land he works. At 32, Weeks is starting to question his career choice.
    “The scariest part for me is seeing these guys who have been in the business for generations selling out,” he says. “These are good farmers, better than what I am. It makes me wonder, If they can’t hack it, how am I going to?”
    New Jersey, by most accounts, had more than 500 dairy farms in the 1950s and ’60s. Those days seem halcyon now. In the last 20 years, the dairy industry has been in free fall. In 2000, just 225 dairy farms were left. By 2009, the number had dropped to 103. By last fall, it had plunged to 48. In 2017, sales of milk and of milk cows were a mere $27 million, trailing blueberries ($84 million), peaches ($44 million) and tomatoes ($39 million).
    Last summer, amid what he saw as a crisis, Weeks asked the New Jersey Department of Agriculture what, if anything, was being done to help the state’s remaining dairy farmers to hang on. In response, the department organized a statewide dairy summit, held in October. Afterward, Tom Beaver, marketing director for the department, sounded upbeat.
    “We wanted to get everyone in the same room and, hopefully, put good opportunities together,” he said. “Everybody’s trying to figure out how we can find solutions for our 48 producers.”
    Sadly, five weeks after the summit, a dairy farmer whose family had been milking cows in Sussex County for generations transported his herd of milkers to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to auction them off, thereby reducing the number of dairy farms in New Jersey to 47.
    “We’re dying a slow death,” says Weeks. “And yet you feel so helpless because it’s not something you have any control over.”
    That holds true, at least in one respect, across the country. Milk is sold as a commodity. In almost all cases, farmers sell their milk not to consumers, but to processing plants or co-ops that pasteurize, homogenize, bottle and distribute the milk. The price the processors pay the farmers is set by the United States Department of Agriculture through its Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO).
    The FMMO was established in the 1930s to support farmers facing low milk prices and to assure consumers an adequate supply of milk. Prior to the FMMO, processors controlled the prices.
    The FMMO is calculated based on several factors, notably regional, national and international supply and demand.

    Photo credit: Matt Rainey
    In 2014, processors paid American farmers an average of $24 per 100 pounds of milk (approximately 12 gallons). By early 2015, the FMMO price had dropped almost 40 percent, to between $14 and $16 per 100 pounds.
    According to dairy-industry surveys, the nationally averaged current cost of producing 100 pounds of milk is $18-to-$20, meaning dairy farmers lose money on every gallon they produce. Yet the FMMO overall has not budged, and retaliatory tariffs by China threaten to reduce demand for dairy exports.
    Meanwhile, consumers have increasingly turned to nondairy alternatives. Since 2012, according to a 2018 national survey by market research firm Mintel, sales of plant-based alternatives like almond, soy and coconut milk have grown 61 percent, while dairy milk sales have shrunk 15 percent. Nondairy milks now constitute a $2.11 billion industry competing for space in supermarket dairy sections.
    Although total U.S. milk sales are down, the 2018 survey noted an uptick in sales of whole milk and a big drop in sales of skim milk. The renewed popularity of whole milk—38 percent of the national $16.1 billion dairy market, compared to 29 percent five years ago—might be attributable to studies showing whole milk’s health benefits, including possible links to reducing diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
    Still, in New Jersey, where virtually all dairy farms are small and most are family run, turning a profit is increasingly difficult, and not just because of the static FMMO.“New Jersey is a very challenging state for farming,” says the NJDA’s Beaver. “Even with the farmland tax program, our farmers are paying some of the highest property taxes on agricultural land in the country.”
    The Farmland Assessment Act, passed in 1964, was intended to stem the tide of farmers selling their arable land to developers. The law established a reduced tax rate for acres being actively farmed. The reduction, however, applies only to those acres, not to farmhouses or any other buildings on the property.
    Worse than selling milk at less than it costs to produce is not being able to sell it at all. Across the country, reports have spread of farmers being turned away by milk processors due to lack of demand. Last year, a New York dairy farmer took his own life. It was the third suicide in the last few years among farmers who sell to Agri-Mark, a large dairy co-op based in Massachusetts. Afterwards, Agri-Mark began sending notices to its members on dealing with depression and seeking suicide-prevention counseling.
    Though there have been no reports of farm-related suicides in New Jersey, farmers here have received similar notices from the co-ops that process their milk, according to Weeks.
    “I’ve seen them,” he says. “Letters that say, ‘We know times are tough. If you’re thinking about killing yourself, here’s a number to call.’ It’s an unfortunate part of the business, but people get pretty desperate.”
    New Jersey, for its part, has been urging dairy farmers to explore what Beaver calls “value-added revenue streams.” These include agritourism programs and the production of milk byproducts.

    Robert Fulper and daughter Mikayla, fourth and fifth generation farmers, have added farm tours, which often end with visitors buying cheese and yogurt. Photo credit: Matt Rainey
    Mikayla Fulper, the 23-year-old herd manager of Fulper Farms, attended the dairy summit with her father, Robert Fulper II, who runs the 1,100-acre farm in Lambertville with his brother Fred. Mikayla, who is among the fifth generation of Fulpers to milk cows in Hunterdon County, has helped steer the 109-year-old farm into the new revenue streams the state has been championing.
    A few weeks after the summit, on a grey, blustery Saturday, when most of New Jersey was being threatened by a Nor’easter, Mikayla was leading two families on a tour of the farm.
    “We dehorn the females at birth because they can hurt each other or get themselves stuck in a bad situation,” she said, explaining why a calf born hours earlier was wearing a cap of silver duct tape on her head. “We put a salve on to prevent horn growth, and the tape is there to make sure it doesn’t spread to the other calves.”
    The tour ended in the 60-year-old milking parlor, where Mikayla deftly attached suction cups to each cow’s four udders, starting the automated milking process that takes five to seven minutes per cow.
    In addition to being in charge of more than 200 animals on the farm, Mikayla handles most of the tourist activities, including a farm adventure camp each summer, and helps sell the cheese and yogurt the family produces, multiplying the value of its milk.
    But as engaged as she is with her visitors, the recent Penn State grad is clearly most in her element with the 105 cows that line up twice a day to be milked. As she speaks, she pats black-and-white Sassy on the head and lets Sassy’s long tongue lick her jacket.
    “I’m passionate about tourism, but slightly more passionate about the cows,” says Mikayla, who expects to one day take over the farm with her brother, RJ, who oversees the crops.
    Almost all milk produced in Jersey is sold to one of three in-state processing plants. Each processor comingles it with milk from neighboring states. Beaver says this is necessary because New Jersey produces much less milk than Pennsylvania and New York. So while Jersey dairy farmers would love to wrap themselves in the state’s Jersey Fresh branding campaign that promotes Jersey fruits, vegetables and other farm products, the comingling of milk rules that out.
    It’s especially frustrating because Jersey Fresh could give dairy farmers a lift. Just before the summit, NJDA assessed consumer attitudes about Jersey Fresh milk. Beaver says 85 percent of those surveyed said they would be interested in buying such a product.

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