Dairy Farmers Protest Futures

Chuck ZimmermanGeneral

About ten members of the National Family Farm Coalition gathered at the Chicago Merchantile Exchange Monday to protest futures trading as the cause for low milk prices. According to Reuters, “the protesting dairy farmers said the price is being manipulated in the cash cheese market traded at the CME which accounts for only a small fraction of the cheese sold in the U.S. They want the government to step in and protect the family farm by overseeing the cash cheese market.” Some of the protesters were reportedly dressed as cows to make their statement. Unfortunately, Chuck was too busy covering the nearby BIO Conference to get a picture of that. Because some 20,000 people from 60 countries are attending the BIO, police kept the small NFFC protest confined to an area near the exchange building in downtown Chicago but there were no arrests.
Chuck was also too busy covering the BIO for AgWired to get any posts on WDD today, so this is Cindy covering for him under his name. He does expect to get some dairy bio stuff on soon. Stay tuned.