COWS

[Fransisco]

Back to supply management and increasing exports of beef. It is an issue and there is a connection.

It comes in the form of market access. Every WTO country has 'sensitive products' that are given more protection than others. In Canada it is the supply managed boys and girls. But do you know what the most popular commodity in the world is that gets classified this way? Beef.

The average tariff on beef in the 30 WTO countries that use them is 80%. Two examples on the low side of the scale are Japan which is at 39% and Korea which is at 30%.

As a side note there are a number of countries that can under the current trade agreement can legally increase the amount of tariff they can apply on our beef. The Philippines which is sitting at 10% can go up to 40% and the Barbados which currently don't enforce any can go all the way up to 184%.

Now do you honestly believe that if we can get countries like Japan, Korea and the 28 others to drop their tariffs on beef that we wouldn't be able to sell them more and make more money on what we do sell to them? Of course we would.

These countries view beef as a 'sensitive product'. We view the supply managed commodities as 'sensitive', heck we have a 241% tariff on milk, 299% on butter, and a 238% tariff on chicken. The point being we have something to negotiate with if supply management is on the table. We have nothing if it isn't.

Grassfarmer you talk about not wanting to throw any "unnecessary financial hardship in the path of my supply managed neighbours," Yet they don't think twice about doing it to you and their own customers.

If we can produce the exact same or better product as another country for a better price we have every right to be able to sell them to the people living there. And the same is true in reverse, those people have the same right to come here and try and do the same thing in our country.

For some reason you are willing to ignore all this in favour of your corporate conspiracy theories. Newsflash grassfarmer it was the US government that shut the border on BSE not the packers and I seem to remember farmers on the US side cheering them on, I guess you don't remember r-calf in the same way you don't remember American consumer groups and American packers who were calling for the border to be re-opened.

[Fransisco]

Tom if you think the supply managed farmers are all just one big happy family what about these border running dairy farmers? I think you might just find something in common with them.

<b>Dairy Farmer Appeals Dairy Quota Squeeze Play</b>

Ian Jack, National Post,


OTTAWA - Chris Birch isn't the first farmer to face foreclosure, but he may be one of the first to be shut down by his own industry association.

The Barrie, Ont., dairy farmer has been selling directly to the United States for over two years, a practice the Dairy Farmers of Ontario has decreed must stop within months. The group - part lobby, part regulator under provincial legislation - says his business is now illegal after a World Trade Organization ruling that Canadian milk exports are illegally subsidized.

But Mr. Birch and about 100 other dairy farmers say the WTO decision is a pretext and the real motive is reasserting the complete monopoly of the provincial milk marketers.

The case cuts to the heart of the milk system in Ontario and Quebec, where most of Canada's milk is produced. In Ontario, farmers pay $27,000 to the Dairy Farmers for a licence to milk one cow. With an average herd of 60, the cost of getting into the industry is prohibitive for many. The number of dairy farmers in Canada has fallen by over one-fifth since 1990 to 19,000 today.

In return for paying for the quota, farmers get a guaranteed buyer and price, currently about $60 a hectolitre. Mr. Birch says he can sell export milk at a profit, including transportation costs, at $25 a hectolitre.

Mr. Birch held down a factory job to help carry the loan on his 55-cow quota until the plant shut down in 1992, then struggled on until 2000. "The quota was always too big a burden," he said in an interview. Then he got an idea - sell the quota, pull out of the domestic industry entirely, and ship all his production straight from the farm to the United States, where with an import licence he was able to sell it to plants producing cheese.

Because he is completely outside the domestic industry he says he and his fellow non-quota farmers, about 35 of whom he represents directly, are not subsidized and should not come under the net of the WTO decision. That decision, based on a complaint from the United States and New Zealand, found Canadian dairy exports are illegally cross-subsidized by virtue of the high prices guaranteed by the domestic supply management system.

In reply, Gordon Coukell, chairman of Dairy Farmers of Ontario told his regulations to bring Ontario into compliance with the WTO decision. These plans include... all producers will be required to hold the minimum of five kilograms of quota."

Bringing non-quota farmers back into the system will kill their ability to say they are unsubsidized, representing the death of Mr. Birch's business plan. The alternative would be to return to selling domestically, and Mr. Birch said he will not go back to the bad old days of struggling to pay the bank loan on his quota.

"I'm 46 years old and I'm not going to mortgage over 20 years," he said. "I'd sell out of dairy and do something else."

Mr. Birch's Georgian Bay Milk Co. has launched an appeal of the Dairy Farmers decision, an appeal that must be heard by the Dairy Farmers' own board. Mr. Birch has also launched an appeal through an Ontario tribunal on rural affairs.

The Dairy Farmers say they are acting consistent with the federal government's interpretation of the WTO ruling.

"It's as a result really of direction from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The interpretation they're delivering is that all export contracts end," said Bill Mitchell, spokesman. He said federal officials told the group, "fighting for such a small volume of milk could put the whole system back under [WTO] challenge."

André Lemay, spokesman for the federal department, agreed the government interpretation is that the WTO decision covers all producers, whether they are in the quota system or not.

But, he added, "the provinces have to decide how they want to treat these people. That's really up to them. Whatever the provinces want to do, we'll offer advice on how to make it WTO-compliant."

Mr. Birch doesn't see much chance of the Dairy Farmers trying to make his life easier, suggesting other farmers eager to try his way have been waiting to see what happens to him.

"It's very difficult to go to the Canadian public on a regular basis and tell them you need more money for milk every year when there's a group that can produce milk at much lower prices," he said. "There's been no evidence that non-quota producers in the last two years have caused any harm to supply management.

"At the end of the day there has to be right and wrong. Saying we can't export milk ... that's wrong, quite frankly."

[Fransisco]

Here is an even better article on the same subject from macleans.

<blockquote>"Since 2002, Birch has been locked in a legal battle with The Dairy Farmers of Ontario and his provincial government. His crime? Birch's farm in Elmvale, Ont., is proof that Canada can successfully sell milk, one of the world's most protected agricultural products, into one of the world's most capriciously protectionist markets. By doing so, Birch has debunked the notion that dairy and poultry farmers need a monopoly over the Canadian market because unfair global trade practices make it impossible for them to compete abroad. That has raised the ire of bureaucrats and fellow farmers, who want Birch to either play by their rules, or get out of the business." </blockquote>

Read the rest of it here.

http://www.macleans.ca/business/companies/article.jsp?content=20060116_119652_119652

[Fransisco]

Now Tom you explain how it is that this situation with milk is so completely different than what you are fighting for when it comes to wheat and barley?

These folks want to be free to sell to whomever they choose just like you. And are fighting very hard for that right. The right to sell their property.

What is so different about milk Tom?

[dalek]

Funny thing about Chris Birch... if it wasn't for the money he got from SELLING his quota, and American processors paying his legal bills to try to get access to Canadian milk, he would have been bankrupt long ago.

And as for those who think there would be more chickens on the prairies without SM... it's no accident that there's practically no chicken production in the US north of the Mason-Dixon line. When 30-40% of your COP has to go to heating the barns, you can't compete with southern (Tyson) chicken. Without SM, there's no Canadian feather industry buying grain.

[Fransisco]

Actually you are wrong dalek, there would be an explosion of new chicken barns in western Canada. If I didn't have to buy quota I'd put a chicken barn next to my hog barn in a minute.

According to the OECD numbers the supply managed feather industries would have the easiest time transitioning out of all of them because, unlike dairy, the amount of subsidy they get is in line with what mainstream farmers get. Looking at the ten year period between 1994 and 2004 it bounced around from 7% to 4%.

Eggs would have a more difficult time but not that much more. Sometimes they are up in the 25% range but some years the world price of eggs is so strong it gets very close to zero.

And its amazing what you can pay for if you don't have to pay quota.

I don't see any reason why Canadian chicken producers can't compete with the rest of the world. We should be major exporters of the stuff and would be without supply management.

[parsley]

Dalek,

What absolute nonsense:

"Without SM, there's no Canadian feather industry buying grain."

Now if you'd said this:

"Without SM, there's no coddled Eastern feather industry buying captive cheap Western grain.", I'd believe it.

Instead of OBVIOUSLY trying to devalue a fellow farmer, you might want to make note of the most obvious observation:

Birch couldn't sell what he grows. In a supposedly free country.

That's your motto, Dalek. You are what you are. SM. My way or force. Jail. Fines.

I don't want you as my business partner, Dalek. Not ever.

Parsley

[grassfarmer]

Don't worry Dalek there is plenty hot air around some of these guy's places to keep your chickens warm!

[parsley]

grassfarmer,

You defend SM; a system employing force and jail, and you try to disguise your choice by attempting to humiliate the person critizising, much as dalek did with Birch.

All because you cannot defend what you believe in. How does anyone sane defend jailing a fellow farmer for selling what he grows?

And you think force is an attribute?
Keep it up. SM depends upon guys like you.

Puke.

Parsley

[jensend]

hey paisley, try the decaf!!!!!