I grew up on a Maine potato farm.

Both my parents were raised on dairy farms.

But other than a few

Maine cows with very old lady’s names,
milk production was not our seven day a week job.

The milk we produced we consumed rather than peddle to the public.

Not sold outside the farm household where I was raised in Houlton Maine.

So for years I have never understood minimum prices for Maine milk that could be charged.

Also wondered why minimum milk prices in Maine were in force, needed. Because potatoes, grains or a brief stint with sugar beets, the vegetable we sold roadside did not have the guarantees, price supports.

The minimum dairy price supports are designed to keep farmers in production, kept on their spread. In business, to maintain, add some stability to the farmer’s bottom line. Here is more on the how, what, why for minimum milk prices. I used to think for free enterprise to work, the market place could decide how low to go on milk and dairy products to bring in the customers. So to think standards for minimum pricing for milk were needed in Maine also seemed vague, fuzzy, mysterious.

At the same time, being right on the US Canadian border lots of milk is scooped up by cross border shoppers.

Taken back across the boundary crossing along with turkeys.And a quick tank fill up of vehicle gas. If you have ever sampled milk from New Brunswick, whoa. No offense but it is nothing like the milk on this side of the border. In the states, in Maine. Price supports and increases in New Brunswick Canadian milk prices happen too. More on Maine’s milk pricing history. And this article shows the bigger picture of milk pricing, exporting in Canada and the US.

Regardless, no one in my farm household growing up or with my own kids has seen milk rationed, or skimped on. In Houlton Maine, lucky to have our own local dairy served by three local milk farmers. And you forget how good the local, fresh milk without the growth hormones is to enjoy. Until you have to take a trip and sample what other people call, drink for milk. It would not pass the local standards for our local Houlton Farms Dairy.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com