Milk Price Fight Boils Over

Dairy farmers around the country have been pushed to the brink lately by drought and skyrocketing feed costs. But in California they are also battling another force: cheese makers.

The state's dairy industry, one of the country's biggest, has been squeezed for years by soaring feed prices and slowing economic growth. Elsewhere, those conditions have caused milk production to shrink, pushing up prices. But in California, farmers say gains from higher prices have been muted by the state's formula governing the price that cheese makers pay for their milk—a quirk in state rules that some farmers say has forced them ...

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