By Amy Anderson
Since the increase of milk and cheese prices, shoppers travel far distances to save up to a dollar per gallon on milk at the BYU Creamery.
Amy Lilly, a mother from Spanish Fork and assistant to the director of the Faculty Center, does all she can to save money on the gallons of milk her family drinks in a week.
'When I see milk at three for $5,' Lilly said. 'I come a runnin''.'
Lilly doesn''t usually shop at the creamery but with the increase of prices, she finds it worth it to travel the extra miles.
Popular grocery stores for students to shop at like Smith''s and Macey''s are showing a rise in milk prices. Smith''s displays milk from $2.88 to $3.49 per gallon and Macey''s from $2 to $3.29.
Ralph Johnson from the BYU Creamery said they won''t raise the prices arbitrarily. Prices will only rise if cost of production goes up. BYU dairy is subsidized by the church, decreasing cost.
'We are trying to keep them down the best we can,' Johnson said. 'We can''t lose money so we are affected by that.'
Johnson gave several reasons for this dramatic price increase. He said the government is raising prices on farms, causing farms to go out of business and resulting in fewer cows to milk.
Milk prices for farmers are estimated to increase up to $16 per hundredweight from the normal $11 seen earlier this year. This increase per hundredweight means an additional price of dairy as much as a dollar.
Several years ago, farmers gave a drug called BST to each cow weekly to increase milk production. BST created an oversupply of milk, decreasing the price of milk.
The government has placed restrictions on the hormone because environmentalists claim the hormone harms cows. The lack of BST has decreased milk production.
The price increase has also affected government agencies, like Women Infants Children, organized to give low-income families free milk, cheese, eggs, cereal and peanut butter. Their goal is to provide families with a means to educate parents to have more healthy children.
WIC has had to cancel the distribution of the peanut butter voucher to cover the increasing price of milk and other dairy products.
'It was too bad when we heard,' said Melissa Palmer, mother of two from Springville who participates in WIC. 'It is unfortunate that these types of state-funded programs, which are aimed at children''s nutrition, are affected this way--hurting kids.'