A Fair Share Law for Connecticut and Other Northeast Dairy States: A State Level Solution to Retail Milk Price Gouging and the Dairy Farm Crisis

Ronald Cotterill ()

No 29, Issue Papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy

Abstract: Price gouging is commonly perceived to be a consumer issue, however it also is a farmer issue. Currently, retail fluid milk prices in New England are as much as a dollar per gallon above supply costs (Cotterill et al. 2002; Mohl 2002). Yes, consumers are paying too much; but farmers are also receiving too little. They are experiencing the lowest milk prices in 25 years. Similar problems have persisted in the Northeast dairy industry for at least a decade. In 1991 the New York State Legislature passed two laws that aim to redress the pricing power imbalance that farmers and consumers face. We will discuss and compare those laws to the law proposed here. In New England, but for the Dairy Compact era (1997-2001), there is little relationship between raw farm level and retail consumer level fluid milk prices (Wang et al. 2001, Cotterill and Franklin 2001, Cotterill et al. 2002). It is especially true that when the raw fluid milk price has dropped, retail prices have not fallen in a commensurate fashion.

Keywords: price gouging; pricing; new england; milk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2002-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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