Bad has turned to worse for milk producers in the nation’s largest dairy state. Few, if any, California dairies managed to fully recover from the 2009 cost/price crisis before another outbreak in 2012. Two things are enormously different this time that make it far more dangerous for producers: They have little or no equity to fall back upon, and the dairy banking world’s ability to be lenient is tiny. It’s against this backdrop that the state’s largest dairy organization put out a cry for help to Sacramento this week. On Monday, Western United Dairymen (WUD) filed a formal petition with California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross seeking temporary emergency price relief in two areas: (more) Aug. 10, 2012 Hoards Dairymen