Dairy Industry Lawsuit

Yesterday, a group of consumers, including members of animal-welfare organization Compassion Over Killing, filed a class-action lawsuit against dairy companies and trade groups who produce nearly 70 percent of the milk in the US. The complaint alleges that the dairy groups had formed the collective committee Cooperatives Working Together in order to control prices across the country by paying farmers to slaughter their cattle in order to reduce milk supply, resulting in more than $9 billion in additional revenue for CWT members. Although the dairy herd retirement program, as the slaughtering practice was called, ended last summer, milk prices may be affected for years. Compassion Over Killing General Counsel Cheryl Leahy comments, “What I hope people take away from this is that the dairy industry is not all happy cows and green pastures. Rather, the reality is massive agribusiness players clearly have little regard for the animals or consumers.”