After selling off its herd of dairy cows, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction will now pay $2.6 million to provide milk for the state's roughly 50,000 inmates.
An existing contract between the state and four Ohio dairy farms was expanded May 31 to include milk for prisoners.
Ohio needs approximately 1.3 million gallons of milk annually for its inmates.
About 1,000 dairy cows were sold by the prisons agency following their April decision to move away from the farm business. The announcement was unexpected, with a nearly $9 million project to improve prison farms in its final stages.
Prisons Director Gary Mohr says the farms were closed due to security concerns and because the practice of preparing inmates for farm jobs is outdated.
