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by SUSAN MANN
Ontario farmers’ dairy quotas won’t necessarily be cut if the Canadian Milk Supply Management Committee decides next week to reduce the national milk production target by 0.6 per cent.
At its meeting Jan. 27, the Committee will consider a recommendation to cut the target, known as market sharing quota, from February to July.
Roger Heard, chief economist with the Canadian Dairy Commission, says the national cut would translate into a 0.3 per cent reduction in quotas for each province in the P5 pool, made up of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
Phil Cairns, senior policy adviser with Dairy Farmers of Ontario, says “there’s no pool decision at this stage to reduce quotas at the producer level.”
The P5 quota committee reviews production trends monthly. A decision to cut each farmer’s quota depends on how production matches the province’s quota.
Cairns says currently production seems to be slacking off “and the jury is still out on whether an adjustment will be required at the producer level.”
Farmers are responding to the slightly less than one per cent quota cut Dairy Farmers implemented in Ontario on Dec. 1. In addition, “they’re adjusting to the fact that we’re reducing the maximum days of over-quota credits (to 10 days from 20 days),” he explains. That 10-day cap on over-quota credits becomes effective Feb. 1.
The Milk Supply Management Committee Secretariat, a group of provincial board staffers and provincial government officials that provides technical support to the committee, recommended cutting the national production target because butter stocks are higher than normal. Cairns says by the end of December total industry plus Commission butter stocks were 15.1 million kilograms. The target level recommended by the Secretariat is 14 million kilograms.
As of Jan. 15, butter stocks were 17 million kilograms. If nothing is done, its forecast that between now and July butter stocks could be four to five million kilograms more than what’s required, Heard says. BF
Milk to Haiti
I know DFO does contribute to charity, but why not just contribute more to food banks and poor people here in Canada? After all, it's our poorest group of Canadian consumers who pays disproportionately the most of their disposable income to buy milk, yet dairy farmers seem to want to overlook our poor, in favour of poor elsewhere.
Committee ponders national milk production cut
Under normal circumstances a cut in production would be the right action. However, the long term situation in Haiti is bleek. For the next year at least, Haiti will need basic nutrition ready made. They do not have the primary means of production or the means to process foods.
Producers, Marketing boards, Processors and Transportation providers should come together come together and provide basics such as powdered milk, butter oil and other milk protien products to help prevent starvation and malnutrition in Haiti. Remember, we cannot deliver in a timely fashion a product we do not have. The quotas and the cattle are already in place and planned to produce up to quota levels for months to come. Work through a Canadian charity such as World Vision Canada or other Worthy Canadian group.to assure delivery,and to get income tax receipts for the doners.