Washington D.C. (June 3, 2009) – Dairy farmers from the National Family Farm Coalition, along with Farm Aid, Iowa Farmers Union and other farm groups, participated in an urgent rally on Saturday attended by nearly 200 farmers in Manchester, Iowa. With prices for milk collapsing by over 50% for farmers in one year, farm suicides are on the rise and many farmers’ livelihoods are being threatened with extinction. Fewer than 60,000 dairy farmers remain in the U.S.

Farm Aid circulated a petition to Secretary Vilsack to institute an emergency floor price of $18. Currently, farmers are receiving $8-10 per hundredweight for their milk, below 1970s prices. Other speakers exposed the corruption in the industry and the changes needed to give farmers a fair price for their milk. “Dairy farmers are among the hardest workers I know,” said Farm Aid board member Willie Nelson. “This rally was for a fair price for farmers and local milk for all of us. It’s about the little guy, not the big guy; the family farm, not the factory farm; consumers and farmers together, not corporate greed.”

Arden Tewksbury, a Pennsylvania dairy farmer and manager of Progressive Agriculture, spoke at the rally about S. 889, the Federal Milk Marketing Improvement Act of 2009, introduced by Senators Bob Casey and Arlen Specter to factor in farmers’ cost of production in the milk pricing system. Tewksbury said, “It was a very rewarding experience driving 14 hours to Iowa to get Midwest farmers to support our bill. I asked the dairy farmers in Iowa if they were tired of their milk prices and if they wanted a new milk pricing formula that covered their cost of production and they responded with a booming ‘Yes!’ to both questions.”

Joel Greeno, a Wisconsin dairy farmer and president of the American Raw Milk Producers Association, spoke at the rally to outline the real reasons behind the current crisis. Greeno said, “Many of the farmers at the rally did not know the extent of the greed and corruption in the industry. They believed the propaganda that blames farmers for overproducing as to why we have to suffer these disastrous prices.” Greeno laid out the Department of Justice’s investigation into Dairy Farmers of America for antitrust abuses, along with price manipulation at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that earned DFA a $12 million fine. He spoke about their collusion with Dean Foods and Kraft and the flood of imported casein and milk protein concentrates that is displacing U.S. domestic milk. Greeno said, “I was gratified by the response I got from people who are all united in outrage that this is happening to our dairy farmers and are demanding change from our so-called dairy leaders.”

Jennifer Bailey, a dairy farmer from Wisconsin, also spoke at the rally about the harsh toll the crisis has taken on farm families. Bailey said, “Our long time community bankers are now no longer offering us credit. Getting a loan to help us plant our spring crop has been extremely difficult and stressful, especially as we have no way of knowing if we’ll ever be able to pay it back because of these depressed prices.”