Good morning. Thank you for inviting us to speak to you today. My name is Adam N. Rabinowitz and I am a Ph.D. Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant in the Food Marketing Policy Center, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Connecticut. Unfortunately, Dr....

Congressmen Gejdenson and Schumer should be commended for their persistent interest in the performance of the ready to eat cereal industry. The release of their well documented and thorough report, "Consumers in a Box" a year ago focused media attention on high cereal prices, which in turn...

The prices that consumers pay for fluid milk, and the profit margin that retailers and processors capture, depend on the market structure and price conduct in local market areas. Fluid milk processing plants are located near the cities that they supply, and competition at the retail level for...

This paper compares and evaluates two recent studies of the impact of the Northeast Dairy Compact. On May 2, 2001 we released “The Public Interest and Private Economic Power: A Case Study of the Northeast Dairy Compact.” A year earlier Professor Kenneth Bailey, Pennsylvania State University...

This brief addresses three issues related to the performance of the RTE cereal industry. First, consumers are dissatisfied with the high price of many breakfast cereals and farmers are concerned about the consequent impact on the demand for agricultural inputs to the industry. Second, although...

For dairy farming the core of the sustainability issue is regional differences in cost of production and prices received for raw milk. Consumers are always going to drink milk. The critical question is where is it going to come from? This paper will not address regional cost of production...

Late in the afternoon before this hearing we received a copy of the report, MFA/Schnittker. At this time we would like to provide a preliminary response to the Massachusetts Food Association and Dr. Schnittker. Perhaps the most egregious flaw in their report is the equation of the proposed...

On June 18, 2002 the Federal Trade Commission held a workshop on merger investigations and remedies. The Food Marketing Institute prepared a substantial white paper for that workshop. Christopher MacAvoy, an attorney at Howrey, Simon, Arnold, and White, forwarded the report to the FTC; however...

There is substantial concern in the state about the economic health of our two remaining independent milk processors, Guida-Seibert Milk Company, New Britain; and Marcus Dairy, Danbury, Connecticut. Some Connecticut farmers are also exploring the possibility of constructing a new cooperative...