KALISPELL – Small dairy producers say the state may drive several of them out of business with current proposals to raise the price of some milk inspection assessments and expand it to non-producers to cover a projected budget deficit within the Department of Livestock.
“They’re making decisions that are going to sink some of us,” Jared Tuck, president of Kalispell Kreamery, says of the Board of Livestock, which has proposed the rule changes.
Tuck said his business – which is unique in that its dairy farm, Hedstrom Dairy, is just a few feet from its processing plant – can survive the increases, but others won’t be able to.
“What they want to do to the dairy industry will tank the small guys,” he said. “They’re catering to the large guys.”
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