DAIRY PRICES ARE GOING HIGHER

Northern Advocate, 28 November 1936, Page 6

DAIRY PRICES ARE GOING HIGHER

Higher prices for milk, butter and I other dairy products this winter and j next spring are predicted by the Department of Agriculture, Washington, says the “Christian Science Monitor.” Basing its prediction on a nationwide survey of the dairy situation, the department’s bureau of agricultural economics said that even though present prices were the highest in several years, a further rise in prices during the remainder of the year was in prospect, prices in the coming winter and early spring probably would average the highest in seven or eight years, the bureau predicted. Federal dairy experts said this increase would include the prices the farmer received and the retail price the consumer paid. The drought and “general improvement in the purchasing power of consumers” were said to indicate the increases.

The retail price of butter for the eight months this year was said to have averaged 39.2 cents a pound, compared with 35.6 cents last year, and a low record for recent years of 27.3 cents in 1933. The peak butter price was 70.1 cents a pound in 1920, and it averaged above 35 for the years 1927-28-29.

The average retail milk price for August was 12.2 cents a quart, as against 11.8 cents for the first seven months of this year. Retail cheese prices for the same month were 21.9 cents, as against 25.2 a year earlier.