Letter from a Farmer to Peter Shumlin

I was at our county campaign office yesterday when Jacques Rainville, a farmer from Highgate, came in. He handed me a letter he said he and his wife Jean had sent to Peter Shumlin’s and Brian Dubie’s campaigns via email seven days ago. So far he has received no response from either campaign.

“I got a lot of family, you know,” said Jacques Rainville. There are about 60 Rainville listings in the St. Albans area phonebook, though certainly not all of them are necessarily related to him. “If I could get an answer, I’d not only vote, but I’d take two more with me.” He asked whether I could get him a response; I said I’d try. The Rainvilles’ letter is below:

October 20, 2010

Hello,

I have a few questions I need answered before making my final decision on voting day.

1. As a farmer it is time for us to make a decent living. We are receiving the same prices for our milk as we did back in the 1960’s with 2010 expenses!

We would like to see you support and promote a supply management program that would give us the cost of production plus a reasonable profit where we are able to meet our commitments and pay a reasonable way to employees (who are not illegal). The price should be determined by the farmers NOT the industry and not by oversupply. When the price is determined by the farmers, there is not need for subsidies paid to the farmer by the government saving millions of dollars on taxes!

2.Renewable Energy. Something should be done about how our energy is produced. We feel strongly wind, solar & hydro power are the sources where our energy should be coming from in Vermont. We should be able to produce safe energy here, not from abroad, relying on foreign oil and electricity. This is an area where the stimulus money would prove most beneficial to EVERYONE to make it feasible for individuals to afford their own solar or windmill systems. The subsidy should be about 35% to compete with the foreign oils and so called cheap sources of energy.

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3. The transportation in this country has got to change! Rail should never have become almost extinct. We have the most inefficient way of moving freight and people in this country. Rail is 400% more efficient than trucks. The railroads should be upgraded for high tech, fast transportation. The trucks are breaking up the roads faster than they can be repaired and are costing the lives of all who drive and ride on the roads.

As a governor, what are your feelings and would you promote and support the above issues? If you want us to elaborate more on the above issues, please feel free to contact us.

I look forward to hearing from you before voting day!

Thank you,

Mr. & Mrs. Jacques Rainville & family

12 thoughts on “Letter from a Farmer to Peter Shumlin

  1. Mr Rainville is a wise man who sees the importance of both energy independence and food independence. Buying our food from local farmers, and keeping them in business, is perhaps the most important thing we can do for our local economy, for our health, for our energy independence (Vs. shipping food long distances), and for our security in the event of national catastrophe (Vs. our food needing to be shipped in from places far away). Buy as much of your food as you can directly from a local farmer you can meet face-to-face. Buy your milk fresh and unprocessed, directly from a farmer that cares about the quality of their product and the health of your family by feeding their cows grass. Go further, and buy grass-fed beef from local farmers, Vs. the mainstream beef that comes from cows fed genetically modified corn and soy.

  2. As a 30 year member of the software industry, I would also like the Governor to insure that I can set whatever prices I think are necessary to make a profit, regardless of market conditions or distribution margins. After all, my industry is totally non-polluting, has good high-paying jobs and allows people to work from home, reducing traffic and pollution.

    Sounds kind of lame, no?

    Ag policy drives me crazy. Farmers need to find ways to dis-intermediate their blood-sucking distribution channel; encouraging local purchasing and highlighting organic Vermont branded products is a good start. I can also see a strong government role in anti-trust enforcement in the channel.

    But if your business model is to produce a commodity, you’re going to get commodity pricing. That’s no different for farming or software. If that market is interstate, how does the Governor of the second smallest state do anything useful? Supply management? So we don’t pay higher taxes, we just pay more for milk. That sounds regressive to me, as the people who use a lot of milk probably are in lower income brackets. I’m sure there’s a lot of factors I don’t know about, but how does that work out better for Vermont?

  3. I’m fully supportive of local food systems.  I want to see our local farms thrive.  And I believe that it is a crime that our dairy farmers are not compensated properly for their product.  

    BUT — I don’t see that there is a lot that Vermont’s governor can do about the price of milk.  If I’m mistaken, I’m sure others here will correct me … but please be specific.  

    Mr. Rainville would be right to direct this question to our congressional delegation.  

  4. “Rail should never have become almost extinct.  We have the most inefficient way of moving freight and people in this country.”  Well, not really.  See the 22 July 2010 issue of The Economist for an excellent article on the subject.  The title is “High Speed Railroading:  America’s system of rail freight is the world’s best.  High speed passenger trains would ruin it.”  The article makes a great case that the America freight rail system serves as an unqualified success of deregulation and as a result provides a near continental system of transportation at well below the costs found elsewhere, including countries usually considered to have a manufacturing advantage such as China and India.

  5. we see little of that efficiency in terms of reduced road traffic here in Vermont. Furthermore, the “unqualified success of deregulation” you celebrate comes at the cost of our ability to do much about getting cars off the road. As was observed in another issue of the Economist

    ..without major government commitments to high-speed rail, America simply will not have a high-speed passenger rail network.

    The writer goes on to quote a “colleague over at Democracy in America” who blames

    “conservative political opposition to government intervention in the economy” for America’s HSR failures.  

    Failing a direct government intervention in passenger rail, the article suggests that

    A more narrow response to the rail problem, specifically, would be to encourage a BOT deal in which the government uses eminent domain to create the rail corridor and turns to the private sector to raise the capital, build it and perhaps run it.

    This, of course, would also run afoul of the same forces, as eminent domain is not looked upon with favor here.  To again quote the Economist:

    That will be politically difficult, especially considering the doubts that modern conservatives and libertarians have about the practice

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