Milk prices reach near six-year low
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Published: February 2, 2009
BURLINGTON (AP) — Milk prices paid to farmers have plunged to the lowest levels in nearly six years.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the price per hundred pounds of milk dropped to $10.72 for February, down $5.02 from January, and $8.96 from a year ago.
The current price is the lowest it's been since 2003.
The demand for milk products has plunged in the global economic downturn, said Robert Wellington, a vice president of the dairy cooperative Agri-Mark. The country is now producing too much milk, he said.
Farmers that provide milk to Agri-Mark were getting $1.99 a gallon in August 2007, Wellington said. The amount will drop to a $1 a gallon by spring, he said. It costs Vermont farmers roughly $1.55 to produce a gallon of milk.
Diane Bothfeld, a dairy industry specialist with the Vermont Department of Agriculture, Food and Markets, expects the average price paid to farmers in 2009 to be $1.21, including the money farmers get from the federal Milk Income Loss Contract.
"Farmers are getting the same paycheck as the unemployed and the farmers are working a hundred hours a week," Wellington said.
Before the price took a plunge, farmers already were feeling the pinch from high fuel prices and other costs, said Beverly Robinson, who with her husband, Kenneth, owns a small dairy farm in St. Johnsbury.
"It must be tough on those people who have a big payroll. I don't know how they're stretching it. We watch the pennies and hope the nickels and dimes show up," she said.
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