Wilson milks the dairy industry?

According to the Roswell-based Dairy Producers of New Mexico, there are currently about 172 dairies in the state, with the largest number in Roosevelt County (41) followed by Chaves County (40).

ALBUQUERQUE -- The farm bill came up in Saturday's Senate debate between U.S. Reps. Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce. According to the Albuquerque Journal:

Wilson went on the offensive during her opening statement, questioning Pearce's House vote last week in favor of the $290 billion farm bill, which passed with a veto-proof majority. Wilson, who voted against the bill, said it contained a "poison pill"— a measure that provides increased subsidies to dairies in Vermont and the Midwest, which she said would hurt New Mexico dairies. "Steve Pearce voted in favor of the farm bill, and I think the people of Chaves County deserve to know why," Wilson said. Pearce didn't address his vote during the debate. After the event, his campaign spokesman said 80 agricultural groups asked Pearce to back the farm bill.

And it brought up several interesting questions. How  important is the dairy industry to these candidates? Just how much do the dairies benefit from the farm bill and how much have they supported Wilson financially?

Generally speaking, New Mexico is not a big subsidy state. According to figures in The Environmental Working Group’s Farm Subsidies Database, the vast majority (79 percent) of farmers and ranchers here don’t get any subsidies. As a state, New Mexico ranks 35^th out of 50 for subsidy payments -- pretty low. Still, from 1995-2006, about 20,000 local farmers and ranchers did collect $885 million in payments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The biggest producers in the state (the top 10 percent) collected an average of $28,000 per year, while small producers, who make up the bottom 80 percent of recipients, collected an average payment of $531 per year.

So, you go to the database and you look up the subsidies and you see a bunch of names and numbers. Great. Who cares? Well, you can use the numbers to answer any number of questions, such as: How much subsidy money has been received by dairies in Wilson’s district? She recently voted against the farm bill because she said it would hurt New Mexico dairies, so I was wondering how many dairies are in her district.

According to NMSU figures, fewer than 15 of the state’s dairies are in Bernalillo, Santa Fe, Sandoval, Valencia and Torrance counties, only portions of which are in CD1. Nearly all New Mexico dairies are in CD2, represented by Pearce. But state dairies and dairy-related political action groups have contributed a surprising amount of money to Wilson.

Of the top 10 recipients of USDA subsidies in Wilson’s district, two are dairies: Zens Dairy in Willard and Edeal Dairy in Los Lunas.

From 2001-2006, Zens Dairy received $453,462 in dairy, corn, wheat, oat and livestock subsidies. (Some dairies grow their own grains to feed their cows.)

Wonder if the folks at Zens ever gave money to Heather Wilson? You can find out at the Federal Elections Commission Web site. Just type in the names of the owners (which you can find in the subsidy database). According to the FEC records, Galen and Wendy Zens have given money to only one candidate for office: In the last seven years they have donated $9,000 to Wilson’s campaigns.

You can also use the FEC database to find out who has given money to political action committees and to which candidates those PACs have donated. For example, Edeal Dairy in Los Lunas received $369,809 in dairy and corn subsidies from 1995-2006. In December, 2007, dairy owner Scott Edeal contributed $1,500 to Wilson’s Senate campaign, and in 2005, he gave $3,660 to the Select Milk Producers PAC.

Over the past few years, the Select Milk Producers PAC gave $2,000 to Tom Udall and $10,000 to Steve Pearce, but the biggest recipient was Heather Wilson, who got $12,000 from 2002-2006.

The Select Milk Producers PAC also gave $5,000 to the Zia Political Action Committee, which in turn gave to only one member of Congress from New Mexico: That would be Wilson, to the tune of $3,500.

Hmm…which other dairy PACs are out there? Oh yeah, the Dairy Farmers of America PAC. They’ve given $30,000 to Wilson. But they’ve also given $31,000 to Pearce, $7,000 to Udall, $7,000 to Bingaman and $3,000 to Domenici.

Representatives for Wilson, contacted Monday, said that the contributions from the dairies did not influence the congresswoman's vote on the farm bill.

print Share

Register or log in to rate