Los Angeles, CA: An antitrust class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of consumers including Compassion Over Killing (COK) members, alleging that various dairy companies and trade groups, including the National Milk Producers Federation, Dairy Farmers of America, Land O'Lakes, Inc. and Agri-Mark, Inc. combined to form Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) in order to fix the price of milk in the United States.
CWT is a massive trade group representing dairy producers throughout the country who produce nearly 70 percent of the milk consumed in the United States.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on Sept. 26, 2011, alleges that between 2003 and 2010, more than 500,000 cows were slaughtered under CWT' dairy herd retirement program in a concerted effort to reduce the supply of milk and inflate its price nationally. According to the complaint, the increased price allowed CWT members to earn more than $9 billion in additional revenue.
The complaint further alleges that the program, which paid smaller farm owners to kill their entire dairy cow herds, unfairly increased the profits of agribusiness giants.
Dairy herd retirement ended in the summer of 2010, but CWT' tactics may affect the price of milk for years, according to the lawsuit. The end of the program came shortly after Land O'Lakes agreed to pay $25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against the United Egg Producers and its members. That case alleged that egg producers were encouraged to reduce their flock size as part of a program disguised as an animal welfare initiative.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on Sept. 26, 2011, alleges that between 2003 and 2010, more than 500,000 cows were slaughtered under CWT' dairy herd retirement program in a concerted effort to reduce the supply of milk and inflate its price nationally. According to the complaint, the increased price allowed CWT members to earn more than $9 billion in additional revenue.
The complaint further alleges that the program, which paid smaller farm owners to kill their entire dairy cow herds, unfairly increased the profits of agribusiness giants.
Dairy herd retirement ended in the summer of 2010, but CWT' tactics may affect the price of milk for years, according to the lawsuit. The end of the program came shortly after Land O'Lakes agreed to pay $25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against the United Egg Producers and its members. That case alleged that egg producers were encouraged to reduce their flock size as part of a program disguised as an animal welfare initiative.
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Reader Comments
Posted by
Kathleen Elliott
on
Kathleen Elliott
on
I'm on a fixed income because of disabilities so I'm on Social Security SSI so I don't have a very large income and I don't have any disposable so I have only a certain amount of money for food and when Big Business decides they're going to be greedy and make it so that if we want their item we have to pay an outrageous amount because they've made it so there's less available and that was by their choice not because it wasn't possible to have more available it's just they wanted to have a higher profit for themselves no matter the cost to this consumer and as consumer on disability I've had to decide that if I went milk or cheese I would have to not have something else in order to purchase it that month and maybe the following might not have one or the other or neither one in order to get the item that I went without the month before and because of me having to do without and pay more for their item I think they should have to pay me not only for the money and but for having to do without other things just not right milk should not cost more per gallon than gas and gas is already outrageous as it is
Posted by
Debra Sparks
on
Debra Sparks
on
I have a large family and have purchased an average of a gallon of milk a day for several years in addition to other products made from milk. The illegal price fixing has cost me a lot more money than I should have paid.
