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Article: The economics of dairy farming: Milk prices
- Article from:
- Vermont Business Magazine
- Article date:
- November 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Boutin-McQuiston, Inc. Nov 01, 2003. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Milk is priced by the hundredweight (cwt) nationally by the United States Department of Agriculture. In 2003, farmers received an average price of $12.50 per cwt, or $1.08 per gallon before expenses. Next year, preliminary estimates indicate that the price will rise to $1.14 per gallon.
That seems like a good thing, but the bad news is most dairy farmers need $1.30 to $1.40 just to break even, said Doug DiMento, director of communications for Agri-Mark, Ltd which is owned by 1,470 New England and New York dairy farm families. In Vermont, it has about 430 farmer-members, including the Robb Family Farm in West Brattleboro.
Prices are starting to go back up, but they're not going up enough to ...