BATON ROUGE (AP) — Jeff Kleinpeter, president of Kleinpeter Farms Dairy, says he knows the woes erratic pricing can inflict on the various players in the American dairy industry.

Kleinpeter Farms occupies two of the three roles, milking its own cows and processing the milk, though it also gets milk from independent Louisiana dairy farms.

‘‘None of it’s easy, believe me,’’ Kleinpeter said. ‘‘I know the dairy farming side is not easy and the processing side is not easy and not too many people want to retail, I can tell you that.’’

One of a dairy farmer’s weaknesses relative to other agricultural products is that, if prices are too low, milk cannot be stored for later like, for example, grain can.

‘‘It’s a perishable product: you either sell it or you smell it,’’ said LSU AgCenter scientist Wayne Gauthier.

‘‘If I have too much raw milk I put it into ice cream, something that has a year’s code date instead of 21 days,’’ Kleinpeter said. ‘‘That’s part of what put us into (making) the ice cream.’’

Kleinpeter decided to begin selling ice cream in 2007, using Louisiana ingredients and partnering aggressively to expand and promote its ice cream line, he said.

‘‘My heart goes out to the dairy farmer because that is nonstop and most of those guys aren’t big enough to go home and have someone take over,’’ Kleinpeter said. ‘‘If there’s any guy that works harder than anyone else, it’s that farmer.’’

The first thing is that all parties need to realize that each part of the chain needs to make a percentage as they see fit competitively.

But he said the reason processors and retailers are hesitant to follow suit and drop their prices is that no one knows how far prices could come up in the future.

The problem, he said, is in the pricing system that creates so much volatility and uncertainty.

‘‘It’s the uncertainty of the federal government’s pricing system that we’re all victims of, including the dairy farmers,’’ he said. ‘‘We all would agree it should be changed so we’d have the consistency to run our businesses better.’’

All other costs — labor, utilities — are more or less fixed, and with less volatility, dairy operations would be more willing to make investments and could make wiser purchasing decisions.

But, he added, ‘‘I have never seen a proposal that addresses the volatility and tries to solve that issue,’’ he said. ‘‘Could it be done? I’m sure there’s a way.’’

The trade-off, Kleinpeter said, would be that it could be viewed as anti-consumer, though the current system has helped create an industry where independent dairies are going under on a regular basis. No one, he said, wants that.

‘‘It’s the lesser of two evils,’’ he said.

But LSU AgCenter scientist Gauthier said playing with the existing system will, at best, solve one problem only to create another one.

The three main values at work in the pricing system are freedom, efficiency and equity, and no system can provide all of them.

Any one policy ‘‘can get two of those three, but I can’t give you all three.’’

‘‘We in this country have more or less depended on a price signal — the price is actually a signal that gets interpreted — which generally makes for a more-efficient use of resources.’’

Gauthier said the trend in the dairy industry, across all segments and in all parts of the country, has been toward fewer, bigger operations.

In 1981, Louisiana had 1,025 dairy farmers in the state and its production peaked two years later at about 1 billion pounds of milk, according to the LSU AgCenter.

Today, the state is down to 185 dairy farmers and produces about 350 million pounds of milk.

Kleinpeter said the slow demise of the state’s dairy farming industry is the reason Kleinpeter Farms got back into the cow-milking business in 1999.

‘‘We were losing farmers and had to ensure quality,’’ he said.

Kleinpeter Farms gets about a quarter of its milk from its own cows and half to three-quarters from Louisiana dairy farms. An out-of-state cooperative makes up the difference when there is one.

Today, Kleinpeter is one of only five U.S. dairies that processes and packages its own milk and ice cream.

‘‘It has not been easy,’’ he said. ‘‘It is certainly a tough, tough industry.’’

That experience is the reason Kleinpeter said he has gotten more active politically for policies, such as paying a premium for dairies that produce higher-quality and hormone-free milk.

‘‘It’s certainly given us a better feel of what these guys are going through,’’ he said.

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Information from: The Advocate, http://www.2theadvocate.com