BY HERB DICKIESON
GUEST OPINION
Thanks to supply management, we produce a safe supply of quality dairy products for Islanders and Canadians produced locally, and employing many Islanders at the production, processing and retail level.
Our Island farmers face many challenges producing the dairy products that are accessible to us all at relatively low cost. Weather, animal health, and market forces allow only the most efficient, hard-working and dedicated farmers to survive, and stay afloat with the significant financial investment risks they take to provide us with the nutrition we enjoy.
RELATED: U.S. not trying to get Canada to end supply management: agriculture secretary
The three pillars of supply management include:
1) compensation to dairy farmers based on a cost of production formula;
2) imported dairy products are subject to tariff to prevent over supply;
3) Canadian dairy farmers produce to fulfill the domestic market.
The international market for dairy products is volatile and associated with boom and bust cycles, often causing financial devastation for farmers.
Resulting government subsidies and bailouts, as in the United States, never meet the real cost of production to which farmers are subjected. This is why progressive American dairy farmers are calling for Canadian-style supply management.
Some external efforts have been made to skirt around our orderly marketing system through the import of sugar-added cream to make ice cream, or dumping ultra-filtered milk product from the U.S. into the Canadian market for cheese production, to which our federal government has turned a blind eye.
Canadian dairy farmers are also threatened by armchair economists, or wavering politicians who seem OK with outsourcing our agricultural industry. Despite the many challenges, supply management provides a measure of needed stability in dairy production, as well as a long term secure supply of safe, affordable dairy products for Islanders and Canadians.
Since the prime minister opted for rides on the fairground at Old Home Week rather than meeting with Island dairy farmers, it is hoped that MacLauchlan government Trudeau whisperers have impressed upon him, between selfies, that supply management is not to be sacrificed in the NAFTA negotiations.
- Dr. Herb Dickieson, former MLA, Island New Democrats
