Apples to Apples or Calculating the Price of Milk

I spent a long time pushing the old pencil today, trying to compare the various milk pricing deals we have been offered. (It was plumb painful; mathematical calculations are so not my thing.)
You would think it would be simple though, wouldn't you? Say, so many dollars for so many hundredweight of milk, so much to haul it to the plant and so much for dues and services. Instead they make it darned near impossible to compare. One place charges forty-five cents a hundredweight and the other eighty cents for hauling. Obvious decision right? Nope, the one with the lower hauling has a higher stop charge. (If you are not a dairy farmer, you probably don't know that not only do you pay to ship your product to the plant, but you also pay for the truck to stop at your place-fifteen times a month.) One has a better base premium and the other higher dues. One charges a nickel to participate in the CWT program, the other includes it in the service fee. And on and on until my head is spinning trying to compare. There is no apples to apples and oranges to oranges about it. More like apples to arachnids and oranges to orangutans.

However, both the boss and I, independently, came to the same conclusion, so I think we know where our milk will be going. It is just a matter of talking to the new inspector now and seeing if we share the same, or at least almost the same, philosophy on just how clean the milkhouse has to be and other milk inspector-type issues. No matter what we do we will be paid less than we have been being paid. The demise of Allied Federated Cooperatives is going to be very rough on a lot of farmers in the Northeast. I am wondering if I should sell all my Allied hats, coffee mugs, carpenter's pencils and all the other things they have given us over the years on e-Bay. They are collector's items now.
Dairy Farming
Milk Pricing