BATAVIA — The nation’s top federal antitrust investigator is in upstate New York to hear complaints from farmers and consumers about a potential lack of competition in the state’s dairy industry.
About 200 people are at a meeting Sen. Charles Schumer arranged with Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney. She’s taking testimony on why the prices that processors pay for milk at the farm level have fallen and consumers haven’t seen savings in stores.
Schumer says prices paid to dairy farmers are the lowest in nearly four decades, while retails costs for consumers are high. That’s part of what’s forcing dairy farmers out of business.
The meeting today in Batavia is the first public forum upstate in an investigation announced in November.
