California dairy farmers filed a petition today with California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary (CDFA) Karen Ross, asking for a hearing to implement the milk pricing deal negotiated and agreed to last week by dairy farmers, cheese makers and the California Legislature. The petition is expected to be posted on CDFA’s website tomorrow.
The deal will bring deserved relief to the state’s still struggling dairy families by narrowing the price between what California dairy farmers receive for milk going into cheese production and the price paid by processors for the same milk in surrounding states. The cost will not be passed on to the consumers.
The dairy producers and processors agreed on a short-term fix of $110 million in new money that cheese processors will pay into a milk pool to be shared by dairy farmers. The $110 million will come from increasing the price of 4b milk up to 46 cents, the milk used to make cheese, and by expanding the whey scale from its existing cap of 75 cents per hundredweight of milk to $1.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Western United Dairymen