by Dennis Halladay, Western Editor
Right now, California dairy producer groups say with total certainty that they were lied to and knifed in the back by dairy processors.
On October 22, yet another producer petition to adjust the state's milk pricing formula and raise Class 4b (cheese) prices was denied by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). But it was at the September 12 public hearing for the petition where producers' trust in processors may have been smashed forever.
Going into it, producer groups had agreed with the Dairy Institute of California (DIC) to support Assemblyman Richard Pan's bill giving emergency price relief to Class 4b milk and permanently increasing the value of whey used in computing its price. The immediate effect would have been to raise producer prices by 65 to 70 cents per hundredweight.
DIC even sent Pan a letter dated July 8 stating its support.
At the hearing, producer groups testified in support of the agreed upon plan. So did seven members of the Assembly and State Senate who had overseen its negotiation.
But legal counsel for DIC testified against it.
Remember the old saying about burning bridges? Well, memories of this blaze will likely stay hot until the producers who witnessed it eventually die.
