Dairy Farmers Want to Dump Their Milk This Fourth of July

Dairy farmers across the country are spilling their milk—but they're not crying about it. New York farmers David and Robin Fitch are organizing a nationwide milk dump on July 4th to highlight the crisis facing dairy farmers. If all goes according to plan, farmers in at least 15 states will dump their day's production of milk in an effort to draw attention to dairy farmers' plights.

The move may seem extreme and, well, wasteful, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The nation's dairy farmers are in the midst of a crisis. According to AOL News, the number of dairy farms in the U.S. has dropped by a whopping 88 percent since 1970, from 648,000 to about 75,000 today. Farmers are getting paid less and less for their milk, to the point where they can no longer make enough money to cover production costs. While milk prices stayed fairly consistent for consumers, the price farmers are paid for their milk has dropped by half since December of 2008. The situation's caused thousands of farmers to lose their businesses, while tons more teeter on the brink of collapse.

Farmers can blame the consolidation of agriculture for their monetary woes. Two dairy processors and distributors pretty much dominate the market these days, the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative and Dean Foods. Because these operations maintain such a chokehold over the industry, they can pretty much pay farmers what they please. Meanwhile, the nation's dairy farmers face increasingly desperate times, struggling to make ends meet. According to AOL, calls to Farm Aid's crisis hotline grew by 500 percent last year, mainly because of the problems facing dairy farmers.

Luckily, there are two moves in the works that could help turn this situation around. As Change.org blogger Kirsten Ridley recently pointed out, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is in the midst of a series of anti-trust hearings focused on the consolidation of agriculture. A big part of these hearings concerns the dairy industry. Hopefully, the hearings will result in a break-up of the few dairy processors that dominate the market.

The Farm Bill could also provide some relief for dairy farmers. Most folks agree that in order for dairy operations to stay afloat, Congress must mandate that farmers get paid at least $1.55 per gallon. The Farm Bill is up for renewal in 2012, which is when this decision would need to be made.

Dairy farmers' livelihoods really depend upon these two legislative moves. The fact that farmers are willing to dump their own milk as a publicity stunt when they're so short on cash evidences just how desperate the situation has gotten. The Farm Bill is still a long ways off from renewal. To act now, sign this petition asking Attorney General Eric Holder to enforce anti-trust laws and restore fairness to the dairy industry.

Photo credit: Jim Champion via Wikimedia Commons