Schumer Will Talk Milk Prices With Investigators

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer is meeting with Justice Department officials, the top federal antitrust investigator, and upstate New York farmers later this month to discuss the record low milk prices.

Schumer said the price paid to dairy farmers is the lowest in nearly four decades, while prices paid by consumers are high.

Juleah Tolosky, a youth program specialist from the New York Association of Future Farmers of America, said anti-competitive practices are driving down prices paid to dairies at the same time retail milk prices soar.

"Schumer needs to do something as soon as possible. New York state is primarily an agriculture state, and right now our dairy farmers can't survive on these milk prices. So, that means the state's main economic structure is in danger."

Franklin County Farm Bureau member Harry Fefee said he is relieved to no longer be a dairy farmer.

"I retired," he said. "But with prices so low, I'm glad I am no longer farming. I don't know how these small family farms are even surveying these days."

The New York Farm Bureau has joined 12 other farm bureaus in urging an overhaul of the milk marketing order system, which sets the minimum milk price farmers are paid.

In a letter to USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack, the northeast farm bureaus state that an overhaul of the order system should include a better mechanism to ensure regional production of fluid milk.

"A systemic review and perhaps ultimate overhaul of the milk marketing order system should be undertaken in an effort to avoid these periodic downturns where dairy farmers are forced to seek government assistance simply to survive," the letter states.

USDA has already taken steps to stabilize milk prices, announcing recently the establishment of a Review Commission that was set forth in the 2008 Farm Bill to explore the milk pricing system. The current system was established in the Depression Era, according to NYFB.