Some Believe Neither Farmers or Consumers Getting a Fair Deal Regarding Milk Prices

Thursday, August 3rd, 2023 -- 8:01 AM

(Rick Barrett, Marshfield News Herald) Dairy farmer Tina Hinchley is sometimes asked why milk prices remain high in the grocery store when the amount farmers get for the product falls for months.

According to Rick Barrett with the Marshfield News Herald, one reason is that every time milk changes hands, there's a cost. Truckers, processing plants, marketers and retailers all have to be paid. Farmers get around 40% of the retail price of a gallon of milk and the rest goes for other expenses.

“The price of that milk is going to go up and up and up,” said Hinchley, whose family runs a 250-cow dairy in Cambridge, about 25 miles east of Madison. However, some say neither farmers nor consumers have gotten a fair deal.

For example, June retail prices for beverage whole milk in the Chicago area rose to $1.33 per gallon above the national average of 30 major cities, although farmers in the Upper Midwest received the lowest price in the nation for producing that milk, according to The Milkweed, a Brooklyn, Wis., dairy industry publication.

“Blatant retail price gouging was occurring, while simultaneously, hundreds of trailers of surplus milk were dumped in the region this spring. Farmers’ net milk prices were sinking to levels akin to the early 1980s,” said Milkweed publisher Peter Hardin.

Truckloads of fresh farm milk were flushed down the drain into Milwaukee’s sewer system as dairy plants around the state, filled to the brim, couldn’t accept more of it. There have been reports of milk dumped in livestock manure pits. “We’ve sunk to very ugly times on the farm and in the industry,” Hardin said.

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