SUPPLY MAGEGEMENT

[burnt]

It's on the table.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/13/canada-wants-to-join-u-s-and-asia-pacific-region-free-trade-deal-harper/

[cpallett]

HT, as a Canadian consumer is it OK for me to be thrilled to the bone that my children are not exposed to milk and dairy products produced by animals injected with bovine growth hormone? Because I am eternally grateful for that (thank you Dr. Margaret Haydon).

Kato is right. Get rid of supply management on eggs and dairy and we will have cheap product from the US and elsewhere dumped into our market. Cheap potentially unsafe product. No thanks.

Food safety, in my view, is the most compelling issue to create and drive the political will to preserve and enhance agriculture in Canada, as well as being the most intelligent way to reduce health care costs. You may have noticed that cancer has now passed heart disease as the number one cause of death in Canada.

[kato]

Good point about the BST. It's hard on the cows. It brings a 25% increase in mastitis, a 40% reduction in fertility, a 55% increase in lameness, and a decrease in body condition. Which all adds up to cows being burned out young. Not a pretty picture, is it?

But that doesn't matter if you're working on a slim margin, like the American dairies are. They have to use those cows up by all means, just to stay in business.

If Harper sells the marketing boards out, just to enter yet another trade agreement with doubtful benefit, then he should be ashamed of himself.

[grassfarmer]

You have not only Dr. Haydon to thank Cameron, the National Farmers Union was heavily involved in the campaign to keep rBST milk out of the Canadian system - the only commodity organisation that got involved I believe.

[rkaiser]

Okay -- 2 bits --- Does supply management really work? Maybe it is keeping the Americans milk out of Canada, but is it also holding Canadian producers back from creating niche market opportunities? Don't know of many milk, chicken or even pork producers anymore who have not "bought" in to the industry with dollars from either outside the country and or outside the industry.

Yes there will be a backlash from current producers if the sand shifts and the castles fall. All structures are unstable after all.

It could lead to bigger and even more concentrated dairy and hog operations, but it could also lead to more entrepreneurial ventures.

The BST thing is an issue, but so are hormonal implants, ractopamine and antibiotic feed additives in our cattle.

I personally feel that offering the consumer a choice is a better way than control.

Yes the Americans have BST and GMOs and on and on, but they also still have choice and I think they have even more choice than Canadians at times. The Organic industry in the USA is way further along than Canada.

Too late to think that the government can protect us from ourselves --- we have to do it ourselves and if that means we start with niche marketing and watch it grow -- so be it. What is time anyway besides and illusion..LOL

How many people would have thought, ten years ago that there would be as many natural beef producers groups in Canada as there are now?

[kato]

One thing that I can't help but think about is the difference in size between American and Canadian dairy farms. Down there, they truly have factory dairy farms, and the smaller operations are under pressure to expand to the factory size.

We see that with size, in a feedlot for example, comes the pressures of an intensive cattle population, which brings along with it the stresses on the animals, and all that goes with it. In a large dairy, I don't see how it would be different, except that when milk is being produced, sanitation and disease control is an absolute necessity.

What are the odds that some antibiotic gets into the milk tank when you're milking hundreds of cows? Or that everything is spotless, and the bacteria count is low, when the equipment never gets shut down between milkings?

I know the consequences for any Canadian dairy farmer who lets milk from a treated cow get into the tank are pretty expensive. With the American system, I'm not sure I trust that they even inspect it.

I'd far rather get my milk from a Canadian dairy that is operating under the strict guidelines we have here. If supply management is what it takes to keep the dairy farms up to the high standards they are now, then so be it.

[grassfarmer]

Two bits about your bits Randy:
"Does supply management really work?" Yes - unequivocally. Thus they don't need to create a "niche" market to get an enhanced return - they all get niche price.

"Don't know of many milk, chicken or even pork producers anymore who have not "bought" in to the industry with dollars from either outside the country and or outside the industry"
What about the Hutterites?
Quote: "By 1997, Alberta's 151 colonies owned 1.5 million acres of land (1% of the total farmland), but produced one third of the dairy products, eggs, and hogs in Alberta and had a virtual monopoly on down feathers. 10% of the country's milk supply came from Hutterite farms."

[rkaiser]

I guess I am just an old guy GF and kato. i have an aunty who's knees are bowed from packing pails to the milk tank in the 60's and 70's. All of these little dairy farms that did make a nice living for the families that ran them were gobbled up by European immigrants with money to spend on fancy new barns and equipment while scooping quota from all the little dairy's that I remember as a kid.

I know what you are saying about scale kato, but it is all in perspective.

Before the days that I am speaking of almost every farm had a few milk cows and separated cream to make some extra bucks.

When I ask if it works GF, I am talking about working for the family farm atmosphere or for a few farms -- that may become fewer I admit.

As for the safety issue --- shit Pallet, it ain't supply management that's doing it. It is consciousness -- and yes it does still exist; and I think more so in family farm situations.

Dropping supply management will open the flood gates just like opening a new walmart in town.

I still stand my ground on choice rather than control. Walmart shoppers can still choose and so can Canadian milk, chicken or pig shoppers.

All we can do is educate them and do our best to offer them a healthy choice.

[Happytrails]

There is no doubt we have challenges living next to the greatest agriculture producer in the world. But we seem to have generally been fairly successful in exporting our production to the U.S. And the opposite is also true.
The question comes down to whether we should wall ourselves off or negotiate fair trade arrangements. HT

[cpallett]

The average age for a Canadian beef producer is 58. The average age for a Canadian dairy producer is 47.

That ought to tell you something.

In the long run beef production in Canada, at least on the family farm, does not appear to be sustainable. Fewer and fewer generations and newcomers are willing to take on a way of life that requires the support of a full-time off-farm job.

Supply management does appear to have accomplished at least one thing; the long-term viability of the family dairy farm in Canada.

As for the Hutterites (and the Mennonites), they are living examples of the success that hard work combined with group co-operation can bring to any agricultural enterprise.

Now if we could only get everybody else to pull together, there are no limits to what could be accomplished.