Wayne Peters has been in the dairy business for fifty years and he says lately business is great.

"It ends up that you don't make a lot of money per week but we have a financial statement that shows up that say we're doing good,” says Peters

He is an organic dairy producer so his prices aren't affected as much by the market but he says his dairy neighbors aren't doing as well.

"If it's going up and down and all of a sudden it goes up to twenty dollars or one hundred in the conventional market they think its going to stay there and now it's down to seventeen that's quite a hit for them,” says Peters.

Steve Huntzicker with the UW Extension office in La Crosse says in the last two years the price for a gallon of milk has gone up to almost $4 on average but recently has come down to around $3.

"There were some down turn in other countries New Zealand and Australia for example had less
production and less availability on the market to supply to some of these foreign markets,” says Huntzicker.

The drop in prices may not be good for farmers but consumers are taking less of a hit at the register.

"I think the economy is turning and I think that's why we see some of the down slide in prices in U.S. markets the U.S. dollar has gotten stronger,” says Huntzicker.

Peters says the market doesn't bother him and he and his farm will keep moving forward.

"We just continue, we grow at a rate of six percent a year and so we'll milk a few more cows,” says Peters.

In Wisconsin over the last year farmers have seen the price they get for milk drop from $21.40 to $17.30 per hundredweight