Milk producers warn of farm closures

ARLINGTON, Va., March 25 (UPI) -- The National Milk Producers Federation has warned that U.S. dairy farms and farm jobs are at serious risk due to plummeting milk prices producers receive.

The price of milk has dropped 50 percent from a year ago, USA Today reported Wednesday.

The Pennsylvania Center for Dairy Excellence said the state's producers received $11.50 per hundred pounds of milk in February against production costs of $15.50 to $18.50 per hundred pounds.

"If these prices stay low through 2009, there's going to be a lot of producers that don't make it," Walt Moore, a milk producer from West Grove, Pa., told the newspaper.

NMPF spokesman Chris Galen said demand for milk had "really dropped off the cliff in the last quarter of last year."

"It's one more indication of how much the global economy has slowed," he said.