ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 14, 2020
This was supposed to be rebound year for dairy farmers embattled by at least four years of depressed milk prices – and then the coronavirus hit. Schools, restaurants, institutions and universities closed to help slow the spread of the virus, wiping out much of the food service market that makes up for a big chunk of dairy farmers’ business. Now farmers and cooperatives from Florida to Wisconsin to Maine are dumping milk because there are no plants that will take it and the price paid to farmers has collapsed again.