Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 15 · column 5 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
uation,” he said. “While nationally there is a surplus, here in the Southeast the price to farmers is neither high enough to attract a local supply nor to cover the cost of hauling milk in from other areas.”
The cost of milk trucked in from the central Wisconsin area, for example, to locations in the Southeast exceeds local prices by about $2.50 per hundredweight, or 22 cents per gallon.
“Unfortunately, when the federal government devised the Dairy Termination Program two years ago, officials failed to recognize regional situations that exist as in the Southeast,” he said. “That government program, combined with the toll the recent heat has taken on milk production, has put the Southeast in a critical situation. And on top of all that, consumers in the Southeast are drinking more milk and eating more cheese and ice cream that ever before.”
During July, milk production in the Southeast was nearly seven percent below a year ago. Meanwhile, Southeast fluid-milk sales for the first five months of the year were about two percent above the previous year and ice cream up over one percent. Nationally, cheese sales for the same period are over four percent above a year ago.
Dairymen Inc. markets about six billion pounds of milk throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic areas for its 6,400 dairy-farmer members; the states that are expected to feel the greatest impact from the milk shortage*
89.9%