from allgov: Times are especially bad for dairy farmers across the United States. About 40% of all dairy farms (or 46,000) went out of business over the last 10 years, due to falling milk prices and rising costs. Farmers went from getting $21.70 per hundred pounds of milk to $11.30 from 2007 to 2009, while animal feed costs increased 35% and fuel prices rose 30%.

A big problem resides in the Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) system, which the U.S. government created during the Depression as a way to keep dairy farmers in business. “Today, however, the FMMO system has become a weapon used by huge dairy companies to accomplish that same nefarious goal–paying farmers as little as possible,” writes blogger Regina Weiss of the Grace Foundation.