Milk in the Southeast Marketing Area; Order Amending and Merging Orders

This final rule combines five Federal milk order marketing areas with unregulated counties in Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee to form the Southeast marketing area. It is based on industry proposals to merge the individual marketing areas so as to more equitably divide the markets' proceeds in what essentially has become a single, large market with significantly overlapping sales and procurement areas. More than two-thirds of the affected dairy farmers participating in a referendum voted in favor of the merged order.