Milk prices ticked up again recently. A gallon of 2% costs more than $4 in many local stores.

Floridians already pay more for milk than residents of most other states. The price could climb even higher in the next few months.

How’d we get here? The answer requires a dive into the fascinating and complex dairy supply chain. Milk pricing is a Byzantine mash-up of free markets and fixed prices, a kind of financial GMO. It’s the stuff of Ph.D. dissertations, but we will stick to the basics.

It helps to begin with dairy farming, where milk gets its start.

Florida’s dairy farmers own about 125,000 cows that produce about 2.4 billion pounds of milk a year. That may sound like a lot but the state ranks 18th in production, far behind leaders California at 40 billion pounds and Wisconsin at 30 billion.

Florida is a milk deficit state. We don’t produce what’s needed to supply the state’s growing population with enough milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream and other dairy products.

Read the rest of the story at the Tampa Bay Times

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