USDA justifies mergers on the basis of orderly marketing criteria, under which overlapping distribution areas and the coordination of movements of milk supplies to processors are key issues, but blend price differences across orders or even among neighboring producers is not. Most of those who support mergers today do so precisely because they see blend price differences across orders as a key issue or concern. Proponents of a national milk marketing order point to the increasingly integrated nature of fluid milk marketing in the United States. A surpluses, order pooling arrangements implicitly assume independence. It can be argued that blend prices in many low utilization orders do not accurately reflect the responsibility of affected producers for serving fluid markets when milk supplies are tight.
Southeastern markets are normally in deficit during parts of the year.
Handlers or cooperatives supplying handlers pull milk from the closest source with available supplies when deficits occur. This may be as far as the Upper Midwest. The cost of maintaining these necessary grade A reserves falls primarily on Upper Midwest states. From the standpoint of the reserve market, this is the equity problem a single national order would address by moving toward equalization of blend prices. A single national order explicitly presumes the interdependence of the entire fluid milk marketing system by recognizing that those responsible for carrying reserve fluid milk supplies should be reimbursed for the associated costs.