January 3, 2007, RESTON, VA - Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers has supplied the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area with high quality milk since 1920. Today Maryland & Virginia has 1,500 dairy farm families dedicated to supplying the cooperative and its customers with the highest quality milk possible. The cooperative maintains marketing agreements with each member, requiring the member to comply with state and local regulations as well as Maryland & Virginia's quality and grade standards. When a member fails to meet these standards, the cooperative has no choice but to terminate his marketing agreement.

To maintain Grade A standards a dairy farmer must have a bulk tank that is:

• properly sized for his operation, such that a licensed milk sampler can take a sample using approved PMO (pasteurized milk ordinance) standards.
• The tank must also properly cool and agitate the milk without the milk freezing such that the sampler is able to take a proper measurement.

In Maryland, a dairy farmer must stay in compliance with state regulations for milk grade and quality, including freeze point.

• Freeze point testing measures the temperature at which milk freezes, and can indicate the presence of excess water in the milk.
• A farmer is in violation of state regulations when his milk's freeze point tests less than -.525. For example a freeze point test of -.555 is within the state's standards whereas a test of -.353 is in violation.

Regarding Maryland & Virginia Membership, Maryland & Virginia has a marketing agreement with each of its 1,500-plus members supplying the cooperative with milk to market. According to that agreement each member must abide by the following:

• The producer shall produce milk in compliance with all governmental laws and regulations applicable to the producer.
• The producer shall deliver the milk to the association in a pure and unadulterated condition suitable for sale or processing.
• The association may reject milk that fails to meet these requirements.
• The association may establish standards for the fitness of milk for sale as to Grade or quality.

Mr. Wiles has been advised by the cooperative's member services team that if he is able to increase his production such that a licensed milk sampler is able to take a sample in accordance with state and grade A regulations, the cooperative will reinstate his membership.

Dairy farms are businesses like any others. Each and every dairy farmer within the cooperative is responsible for making management decisions for his individual farm business. All farm business and operational decisions fall to the farmer. The cooperative merely undertakes the marketing of his milk once it leaves the farm.

Owned and operated by 1,500 dairy farm families from Pennsylvania to Georgia, Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers is a milk marketing and processing cooperative providing consumers throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. with fresh milk and dairy products. Maryland & Virginia owns and operates three fluid processing plants; Marva Maid of Newport News, Va., Marva Maid of Landover, Md., and Maola Milk and Ice Cream Company in New Bern, N.C.; a manufacturing plant in Laurel, Md.; and an equipment warehouse business in Frederick, Md. The cooperative is also majority owner of a second manufacturing plant, Valley Milk LLC located in Strasburg, Va.