CHICAGO, April 18, 2005 -Farmers, consumers and others gathered in front of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Monday to protest price manipulation and express strong support for an international dairy policy that works for family farmers and consumers worldwide.

"We're in Chicago because traders on the CME set dairy prices in America and around the world," said Paul Rozwadowski, Chair of the National Family Farm Coalition's Dairy Subcommittee and Wisconsin dairy farmer. "We want government to oversee what's going on at the CME-a handful of dairy traders who manipulate commodity prices to their advantage."

Currently, the CME is a self-regulated thin market with near perfect correlation with farm-gate milk price. "The market mirrors farm-gate milk price to such an extent that it would be impossible to say that the two were unrelated," said John Bunting, a dairy farmer from Delhi, NY. "The price set on the CME influences world prices for dairy products, from England to Australia."

That's why the National Family Farm Coalition supports an International Dairy Policy Declaration that calls for a floor price for the farmer at the regional cost of production plus a profit. "Everyone deserves to earn a good living, or at least enough to support their family," said Joel Greeno, President of the American Raw Milk Producers Pricing Association. "This declaration would establish international dairy policy that's good for family farmers and consumers in the U.S. and abroad; we're all working for the same thing: fair trade and fair pricing."

According to Patty Lovera, Deputy Director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, consumers in the U.S. experience anything but fair pricing from volatile swings at the CME the savings do not show up in the dairy case. "Consumers deserve to know what's going on at the CME to keep consumer milk prices high," Lovera said. "If the price farmers get for their milk is always dropping, why don't prices at the grocery store drop as well?"

Following the protest, a farmer delegation will meet with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's anti-trust division to discuss CME activities. For more information, contact the National Family Farm Coalition at 202-543-5675.