Dairy Margin
At its base, milk pricing in the U.S. is complicated (How Milk Is Priced in Federal Milk Marketing Orders: A Primer). And the variations in milk checks from farm-to-farm (even neighbors), month-to-month, and cooperative-to-cooperative, and from cooperative to proprietary handler take the pricing complexities to another level. Prices paid to dairy farmers depend upon where the farm is located, where the milk was delivered and pooled, the fat and protein content in the milk and the cooperative- and handler-specific premiums and assessments. Put simply, every dairy farmer in the U.S. likely receives a different price per hundredweight for their milk.