It may come as no surprise that much of our agriculture is wrapped up in dairy - after all, Wisconsin is called America's Dairyland. But despite the moniker, Wisconsin is not immune to the market forces that drive the price of dairy both here and throughout the country. You might notice when you go to the grocery store, the price of milk varies a lot. In fact, it changes so much that it’s routine for some groceries and delis to post the price outside of the store - like signs at a gas station. So what makes the price of milk so variable, and what does that volatility mean for the Dairy State? Bob Cropp is a professor emeritus and dairy marketing policy specialist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He says there are three main factors that impact the price of dairy nationwide. "One is the level of milk production: how much milk we're producing," he explains. "The second would be demand, our domestic demand: how our cheese is selling, butter, fluid milk is selling, other dairy