The owners and attorney for the farm received word last month from Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa A.D. Ranaldo that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency wanted to hold an auction as soon as this week.
The FSA has been involved in legal action with the farm and its owners, the Clark family, through bankruptcy court for four years. In February, those proceedings ended, clearing the way for the FSA to call in the loan and hold an auction.
“They want all the cows and all machinery, everything,” said Mary Saceric-Clark, who lives and works on the farm along with her son Robbie Clark Jr. Clark operates the farm while his mother helps with the books.
“Until the day that the auctioneer arrives,” Saceric-Clark said last week, “we’re going to continue to fight.”
Milky Way Farm, which milks about 60 cows and has about 100 total, is on Route 133, not far from the Ira town office. Its red barn and white farmhouse across the road sit on about 125 acres.
Patrick Freeman, FSA loan service director in Vermont, and Rebecca Rice, an attorney for the Clarks, could not be reached for comment. The FSA is represented in the court proceedings by the U.S. attorney’s office in Vermont. Ranaldo, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the matter, citing pending litigation.
Saceric-Clark has called on federal and state lawmakers, asking them to intervene with the FSA to find a way to mediate the situation. However, she said, despite the efforts of some, including Vermont Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts, she has not been able to get the FSA back to the table.
“We agree that the way that it is now, it cannot continue. We are in complete agreement with that,” Saceric-Clark said of the farm operation. “That’s why we want to sit down with them to come up with a way to see how it could become viable.”
“We did try to see if we could get some mediation. We just weren’t successful at it,” he said. “We were hoping for a better outcome. I feel for the family. It’s a beautiful farm with beautiful animals.”
State Sen. Brian Collamore, R-Rutland, said he has talked to Saceric-Clark and Tebbetts. “I wanted to see if there is anything we could do,” the lawmaker said.
However, since the federal government is involved, he said, he’s told there is little the state can do.
“It’s just not right. We’re losing farms, especially the small local farms for which Vermont is known,” said Collamore, a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture. “Our small farmers are very much in trouble here, and this is a classic example of it.”
The note sent in mid-April said the federal government wanted to schedule an auction during the week of May 15, which is when the cows and equipment could have the most value. However, since that time, Saceric-Clark said, she hasn’t received any additional word on plans for an auction.
If the Clarks sell voluntarily, an auction could bring in more money, according to the note. Saceric-Clark said she might not have much choice because if she doesn’t, the cows and equipment may be taken away and auctioned off somewhere else.
Clark Jr. said if the farm were bigger, more help would be offered. It’s the smaller dairy farms, he said, that are being squeezed out of business.
The farm entered bankruptcy in 2012, filing under Chapter 12, which allows for small farms to reorganize and restructure debts. The Farm Service Agency, People’s United Bank and the Vermont Agricultural Credit Corp. were among the largest creditors.
Robert Clark Sr. bought the land for Milky Way Farm in 1984. Clark Jr., now 30, joined his father in running the business when he turned 18. They ran it together for more than a decade, until Clark Sr. died at age 69 last year of cancer.
For roughly the past year, Clark Jr. has worked the farm alone.
A reorganization plan through the bankruptcy court included restructuring loans and paying off a debt to the FSA of $287,040 over five years, with monthly payments averaging $4,784. The loan covered the cows, machinery and equipment. Over time, the Clarks said, due to illness, death and declining milk prices, payments were missed and reports not filed on time.
The Clarks have tried fundraising. They have a page on the fundraising website gofundme.com. The goal is to raise $200,000 to help stave off the auction. So far, they’ve raised nearly $14,000, and a community event at the farm last weekend drew about 200 people and raised another $1,000, Saceric-Clark said.
On top of the potential for an FSA auction, People’s United Bank filed in federal court recently seeking to foreclose on the property. The bank states it is owed more than $300,000, not including other expenses and back taxes.
Saceric-Clark said if the FSA matter can be dealt with, and a workable business plan can be put in place, they would be better positioned to arrange a monthly mortgage payment schedule with the bank.
In recent weeks, the Clarks have been trying to sell some of the cows on their own to no avail. One Canadian farmer wanted to purchase 40 cows for as much as $2,200 each, she said, but backed out of the deal when he realized it would be a 10½-hour trip to transport the animals.
“They thought it would be too stressful on the cows,” Saceric-Clark said. Her preference, she said, would be to sell some of the animals themselves and keep enough to perhaps run a small dairy operation. Any money made from the sale of the cows would go to pay off the FSA debt.
“We just would like to know where they’re going,” Saceric-Clark said of the cows. “That’s important to us. Whereas with an auction, you don’t know what’s going to happen to them.”
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