In most parts of the United States, regulated marketing
areas for milk are provided with names having a supply area
connotation. This is also true in Florida. However, as stated by
W. G. Sullivan, "such an area is, in fact, an area in which milk
is sold to consumers rather than a production area."./ In each
Florida milk marketing area, most of the milk is consumed in no more
than two or three counties of high population concentration and urban-
ization. Each area, however, includes from eleven to twenty
counties.

 Milk marketing areas as delineated in 1959 by market
control agencies were used for two important reasons. First,
this procedure facilitated the use and maximized the value of records
and reports of those agencies which are summarized and published
on an individual milk marketing area basis. Second, there are
numerous difficulties in defining marketing areas for milk. As
will be shown, only one area in Florida was fully supplied by
producers within the market. Distributors of fluid milk products
also are extending the size of the area in which they operate, and
in many cases sell to consumers located in two or more marketing
areas. Therefore, it seemed most logical to use marketing areas as
defined by state and federal agencies and to consider the unregulated
area in Northwest Florida as a distinct milk market.


Types of Data Collected

 Data were obtained for each milk marketing area pertaining
to supply, movement and utilization of milk. Information on supply
included: (1) location, (2) volume and (3) prices paid by
processors for local and out-of-area sources of milk. Data on
milk movement included information on intermarket and intramarket
sales and transfers of both raw and processed fluid milk. Supply
information was obtained for the three milk marketing areas
regulated by the Florida Milk Commission from records supplied
by the Commission administrator and his staff. In the Southeastern
Florida Milk Market Area, supply data were obtained partly from the
market administrator and partly from the records of the Independent
Dairy Farmers Association./ In northwest Florida, supply data



 5/W. G. Sullivan, "What Can Federal Orders Do to Solve the
Pricing Problem?" Proceedings, Part II, Milk Pricing, 25th Annual
Dairy Industry Week (Bozeman, Montana: Montana State College,
Department of Agricultural Economics) flovember 1960 p.91.

 /'This association is a bargaining cooperative representing
dairy farmers supplying milk to the Southeastern Florida Milk
Marketing Area. Offices are in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.