EMERSON BEGINS TOUR AT CAPE DAIRY FARM

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson voiced support for a dairy cartel as she kicked off her annual farm tour Thursday with a visit to a Cape Girardeau County dairy farm where there was plenty of chocolate milk on hand.

The bottles of chocolate milk came from a Murray, Ky., company that uses milk from Jerry Siemers' dairy cows.

"You are drinking my milk," said Siemers, offering a cooler of small bottles of chocolate milk to the small crowd of about 20 farmers, Emerson staffers and reporters who showed up at the farm on County Road 208 southwest of Cape Girardeau for the start of Emerson's annual agriculture tour. The five-day tour, which takes Saturday and Sunday off, ends next Wednesday with a visit to U.S. 60 improvements in southern Missouri.

A proposed dairy cartel could benefit Missouri farmers but is politically unlikely, Emerson said as she toured Siemers' farm near Cape Girardeau.

Under the plan, Congress can give regional groupings of states the authority to regulate interstate markets for milk to ensure more stable prices. That would raise milk prices for farmers, she said.

Senate opposition

There's already a compact for Northeast states. But even that's in jeopardy and future compacts are unlikely, she said, because of opposition in the Senate.

Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, said the House Agriculture Committee's proposed 10-year farm bill would continue price supports for dairy farmers.

That won't help Marvin McMillan. The Friedheim farmer got out of the dairy business in 1991 because of low milk prices. He drove a truck for a few years before getting back into farming. Today, he raises beef cattle and sells alfalfa hay.

McMillan said foreign competition has hurt American farmers.

"My gut feeling is imports are the major problem we face in agriculture today," he said.

McMillan wants trade to be put on a level playing field. He said that can't happen unless farmers in other countries are held to the same standards as farmers in this country.

Emerson said the European Union has outnegotiated the United States in agricultural trade agreements and its Green Party environmentalists remain opposed to the use of bio-technology in growing food.

"These people are wacko. They do not listen to reason," she said.