Suit alleges Calif. milk-marketing firm misreported data to USDA, cheating dairy farmers across U.S.

Dairy farmers allege in a class-action lawsuit that milk producers across the nation were cheated because "a California entity that markets nonfat dry milk to over 40 countries worldwide" misrepresented dairy product prices to the Department of Agriculture, Steve Taylor reports for Lancaster Farming.

"The suit alleges that DairyAmerica from 2002 until 2007 misreported dairy product prices to the USDA-National Agricultural Statistics Service, resulting in lower payments for the sale of raw milk to producers," Taylor writes. USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service "uses the data to establish the minimum values of milk." DairyAmerica, owned by nine dairy cooperatives, produces about three-fourths of the nonfat dry milk made in the U.S. It didn't return Taylor's call seeking comment.

"Improper reporting of NFDM prices was first described in a March 2007 investigative article in The Milkweed, a Wisconsin dairy marketing newspaper," Taylor notes. "That triggered an investigation by the USDA inspector general, who concluded that inaccurate price data had been submitted as far back as 2002." (Read more)

The suit was filed in federal court at Fresno, Calif., by four dairy farmers from Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, who ask that it be made a class action to cover tens of thousands of dairy farmers who were affected. For a copy of the suit, via Milkweed, click here.