The Justice Department’s top antitrust cop, Christine Varney, joined New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer in upstate New York on Monday to discuss the state of the dairy industry with farmers from the region.

The meeting in Batavia, arranged at Schumer’s request, attracted about 200 people, according to WCBS television ^[1].

The session follows a formal workshop ^[2]in Iowa earlier this month that is part of a series hosted by the DOJ and the Department of Agriculture exploring competition in agricultural industries.

Schumer and other critics have complained that the prices paid to dairy farmers have dropped, but consumers haven’t seen any parallel decrease in the price of milk at the store. Schumer said prices paid to dairy farmers are the lowest in nearly four decades

“For too long farmers have been receiving rock-bottom prices for their product, while prices have not dropped commensurately for consumers at the stores. … It just doesn’t add up,” Schumer said ^[3] in a statement according to The Buffalo News.

A Catskills-based Web site called the Watershed Post ^[4], along with several ^[5]farmers and farm advocates, blogged about the event. Some highlights:

*Schumer went after Dean Foods, hard.

“Dean Foods is the largest fluid milk buyer in the country. … They dominate too much of the dairy industry, they thwart competition, and both farmers and consumers are hurt. … Dean Foods’ profits went up by a third while milk prices to farmers crashed,” Schumer said, according to Lissa Harris from Watershed Post.

The Justice Department sued Dean Foods in January alleging ^[6]that the dairy processor’s acquisition of two plants in Wisconsin eliminated competition in the milk industry. In a filing last Thursday, Dean Foods argued ^[7] that the DOJ did not define the geographic market in its complaint in a manner required by its own guidelines for challenging a merger.

*Varney, who grew up outside Syracuse and went to college in Albany, said she milked cows and is familiar with family farms.

*One speaker said the prices paid to dairy producers dropped more than 30 percent in 2007 and 2008, and 25 percent last year.

*Some speakers stressed the role that large retailers play — saying they pressure the processors, who in turn pressure producers to lower prices.

*One farmer with 1,800 cows lost half a million dollars last year. He said he used to sell to five processors, but they’ve all gone out of business or been sold to Dean Foods.

A local television news station in Rochester reported ^[8] before the session that some farmers in the area are paid $5 per hundred pounds of milk, while others received more than $16 for the same amount.

“Our problem really is that we are getting a shrinking dollar … but the consumer is not seeing a lower price,” one farmer told the station, WHAM.