NORTHEAST DAIRY COMPACT RELEASES $7.1 MILLION

MONTPELIER, VT – The Northeast Dairy Compact Commission today released $7.1 million for payment to dairy farmers. This money represents an extra $1.23 for every hundred pounds of milk (11.6 gallons) produced by the farmer.

Milk production per cow varies by quite a bit, from season to season, breed to breed and farm to farm. However, the average monthly milk production per cow in the top 20 milk producing states is about 1,500 pounds of milk. This means that on average each cow earned her owner an extra $18.45 in March as a result of the Compact.

The Compact only applies to milk sold as a beverage – class 1 milk -- to consumers in the six New England states. The Compact payments can go to a farmer located anywhere so long as he or she provided milk to the New England market.

The federal price of class 1 milk, set monthly by the Office of the Milk Market Administrator, has hovered around $14 per hundred pounds of milk since December. This is $5 less per hundredweight than it was a year ago at this time. A hundred pounds of milk is the traditional unit for measuring bulk milk.

Since July 1997 when the first Compact pool was paid, the Northeast Dairy Compact Commission has returned to farmers nearly $99 million. Connecticut farmers have received about $7.7 million. Massachusetts’s farmers have received about $5.9 million. Maine farmers have received about 8.3 million. New Hampshire farmers have received about 5 million. Rhode Island farmers have received more than $400,000. Vermont farmers have received about $41 million. Farmers from outside New England, including New York farmers, have received nearly $31 million.

For more information, please contact David Ferch at (802) 229-1941.