AUGUSTA – A plethora of agriculture bills dealing with animal welfare and the dairy industry crisis will be heard the first week of March by the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Conservation.

Four of the bills are aimed at providing relief for Maine’s dairy farmers, and include proposals of outright cash payments to farmers and setting a maximum milk retail price.

The four animal welfare bills deal with abandoned cats, dangerous dogs, training for animal control officers, and increases in fines for uncontrolled dogs and keeping dangerous dogs.

The emergency Act to Stabilize the Maine Dairy Industry is sponsored by Sen. Kenneth Gagnon, D-Waterville, and has 35 co-sponsors, including more than half of the Agriculture Committee.

The bill states that the dairy industry is in crisis, on the verge of losing as many as one-third of its dairy farms as they cannot operate when milk payments are lower than the cost of production. LD 338 proposes a direct payment dairy subsidy through the Maine Milk Commission based on the individual farmer’s level of production.

The payments would be half of the difference between $17 per hundredweight of milk – the cost of production – and the base price of milk each month. Gagnon is asking for a supplementary appropriation of $5.5 million to fund the program through June 2003.

Two other dairy bills, LD 593 and LD 570, both submitted by Gov. John Baldacci, provide mechanisms to provide $950,000 as direct payments to farmers.

LD 593 provides for funds left over in the Dairy Farm Stabilization Fund, estimated to be $225,000, to be placed in the general fund. LD 570 would then appropriate that $225,000 and another $225,000 from the general fund, and add it to $500,000 from the Maine Milk Commission in undesignated surplus to provide payments to farmers totaling $950,000.

These payments would be sent to farmers no later than April 2003.

A fourth dairy bill, submitted by Agriculture Committee co-chairman Rep. Linda Rogers-McKee, D-Wayne, would set a maximum rate of return for the retail sale of milk. The law would prevent price gouging by retailers when the price of milk paid to farmers is low.

The Animal Welfare Program’s new director, Norma Worley, said Thursday she is still reviewing the animal welfare bills and determining their fiscal impact.

LD 702 amends the animal welfare laws to clarify the definition of an abandoned animal and establish procedures for municipalities dealing with animal control. It also increases the fines for animal violations, setting minimums for various offenses, and allows humane agents, in addition to animal control officers, to order the confinement of dangerous dogs.

LD 431 requires that animal control officers receive eight hours of recertification training each year and sets minimum educational requirements.

Two other animal welfare bills increase fines for keeping dangerous dogs and require all shelters to scan stray cats for microchip identification.

A public hearing on the animal welfare bills will be heard at 9 a.m. Monday, March 3, in Room 206 at the State house. A public hearing on the dairy bills has been set for 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 5 at the same location.