With yesterday’s House vote of 318-106 and today’s Senate vote of 81-15, Congress has the bipartisan, veto-proof majority it needs to ensure that the much-delayed farm bill will become law.

But looking closely at the votes of New Mexico’s congressional delegation revealed two surprises.

Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson both voted against passage of the Farm Bill, citing problems with provisions of the bill dealing with milk price supports. But conservative Rep. Steve Pearce, whose southern New Mexico district includes many of the state’s dairies, voted for the farm bill, along with his liberal colleagues, Reps. Tom Udall and Sen. Jeff Bingaman.

After the House vote yesterday, Pearce’s office released a statement that called the farm bill “one of the most important and responsible reform-oriented farm bills ever produced by Congress.” It quoted the Congressman as saying, “This Farm Bill is not perfect, no bill ever is, however the bill considered today addresses nutrition, renewable energy, and conservation, while ensuring a safe and affordable food supply for the American family. The bill will continue to provide our family farmers and dairies the framework to produce safe, abundant and affordable food, even as many places in the world are experiencing food shortages.”

Pearce gets touchy-feely about food stamps, conservation and renewable energy, while Wilson defends New Mexico’s biggest agricultural industry? Welcome to bizarro world!

Cattle industry leaders on Thursday expressed distinct interest in Pearce and Wilson’s votes, but none claimed to understand the precise motivations behind them.

Could Pearce be trying court moderates while Wilson cozies up to the state’s biggest agricultural industry just weeks before the Republican primary? Surely not!

Although the National Milk Producers Federation had supported the Farm Bill as written, the Dairy Producers of New Mexico opposed it.

Before the votes, the statewide group released a statement that read, in part:

"Since the Farm Bill was first discussed the economics and market conditions for dairy has changed dramatically, especially in New Mexico. The provisions in the final Farm Bill fail to address those concerns such as higher feed and fuel costs, but instead weaken the protections under the Federal marketing order minimum pricing and provide additional price protection to other regions of the country which compete with New Mexico.”

Wilson’s statement about her vote, released Wednesday, basically said the exact same thing:

“Changes to the dairy provisions in the Agriculture bill made in the conference committee disadvantage New Mexico dairy producers to such an extent that I cannot support the Agriculture bill in its current form…”

At issue is the extreme difference between the size of New Mexico dairies versus the average US herd size—ours are much bigger.

“New Mexico has the largest family dairy farms in the nation,” Sharon Lombardi, Executive Director of Dairy Producers of New Mexico said. “Our average herd size is 2,000 head. The farm bill would benefit some of the small producers, but it penalizes large producers,” she explained.

In the past 40 years, New Mexico’s average herd size has increased from an average of 15 cows to an average of 724 cows per dairy.

The national average in 2004 was 111 cows. New Mexico’s largest dairy, Las Uvas Valley Dairy, milks 32,800 cows per day.

 

 

Chart from the UMass Amherst Center for Agriculture.