© AgMedia Inc.
by SUSAN MANN
The federal government is helping the Canadian dairy genetics industry boost sales in international markets with $1.22 million in funding.
Pierre Lemieux, Parliamentary Secretary to Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, made the announcement today at the Dairy Farmers of Ontario annual meeting in Toronto.
The money will help the Canadian Livestock Genetics Association fund a variety of targeted international market development initiatives to increase the volume and value of dairy cattle embryo and semen exports and raise awareness of Canada’s top quality genetic programs.
Rick McRonald, Association executive director, says some of the markets they want to increase exports to are Europe, China and Southeast Asia. The United States market is important but the Association doesn’t get funding for market activities there as part of this initiative.
Canadian dairy genetics exports hit $177.8 million in 2008, a 73 per cent increase over 2007. Numbers for 2009 still have to be finalized but McRonald says they’ll be down considerably compared to 2008 because of the global economic recession and the collapse in the world milk price. “The world price of milk has absolutely clobbered the sales of dairy genetics, particularly live animals, but semen as well.”
Live cattle exports have almost dried up totally and the “average price of a dose of semen exported has dropped dramatically too,” he explains.
Most of the $1.22 million will be spent to provide education about Canadian genetics and train people how to inseminate cows or do embryo transfer and to provide courses on nutrition. Some of the money will also be used for trade shows.
“One of the biggest activities is all of what is done around the Royal Winter Fair,” McRonald says, adding it’s the biggest Canadian show the Association uses to tell the world the good news about Canadian livestock dairy genetics.
The $1.22 million in funding comes from the federal government’s Agri-Marketing program, a four-year, $88-million initiative that assists producers and processors to increase Canadian product exports.
On Tuesday the province of Ontario committed $300,000 to the Johne's Education and Management Assistance program, a four-year effort to prevent the spread of the common bacterial infection of the intestinal tract of cattle.
According to a provincial government press release, there are 400,000 dairy cows in Ontario. The average dairy farm has 60 cows.
Dairy is Ontario's largest commodity with annual sales approaching $1.7 billion. <strong><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">BF</span></strong>
Comments
an online visitor replied on Permalink
dairy genetics exporting assistance
This $1.22 billion is public money being spent to help other countries produce milk which we, in turn, won't buy. It's bad enough that Canadian consumers have to pay more to buy their milk in the first place, it's even worse that our income taxes are being squandered to help continue this double standard. Gerry Ritz, and Candaian dairy farmers are screwing Canadians not just once at the grocery store, but again, when we pay our income taxes. Only in Canada would the entire farm community support such a blatant double-standard - shame on us all.
an online visitor replied on Permalink
dairy genetics exporting assistance
I'm sure it's just a typo, but the assistance is $1.22 million, not $1.2 billion. Even then, it's still taxpayer money being spent for absolutely no benefit to Canadian consumers of milk and other dairy products. Furthermore, it serves none of us well that someone had the nerve to boast about increasing exports at the annual meeting of one of the most blatantly-protectionist groups in the country, and not have ANYONE point out, or seem to even notice, the irony.
an online visitor replied on Permalink
We are spending 1.2 million
We are spending 1.2 million dollars to help bring in 170 million dollars, that doesent sound to bad if you ask me.
an online visitor replied on Permalink
dairy genetics exporting assistance
But getting taxpayers to cough up $1.2 million in hard-earned tax dollars, for no other reason than to help put $170 million dollars into the pockets of what is already the richest group of Canadian farmers, is completely obscene. In addition, normally when taxpayers are asked to put money into something, they can expect to get something back - in this case, other than the satisfaction of seeing Robin Hood working in reverse, they get nothing - not even a glimmer of a chance to buy some of the cheaper foreign milk their tax dollars helped produce. Finally, dairy farmers completely forget about, and completely ignore, the fact that beef and swine genetics also need export assistance, and that these sectors currently need all the help they can get. It is, therefore, completely infuriating to see the already well-coddled dairy industry get what the beef, and swine, exporting sectors need far more.
an online visitor replied on Permalink
Beef and Pork
Beef producers and pork producers have had opportunities to establish their own supply managed systems similar to the dairy industry. When I was a young boy, many years ago, my father took me to a meeting held in the local hockey arena. Times were tough on the farm in the early 80's and the purpose of the meeting was to begin a movement for supply management in these two sectors. My father and a hand full of other supports were almost run out of the arena when they voiced their support for supply management. Today, almost 30 years later, the beef and pork industries are still struggling. Some would argue that they are worse off today than 30 years ago. Just imagine where beef farmers and hog farmers would be now if they had had the foresight that the dairy and feather industries did. 1.22 million is a very small price to pay if the return is 100 times the investment. Tax payers (of which I am one) support all sort of government programs with a much much smaller return.
an online visitor replied on Permalink
Beef & Pork
Yea sure lets dump on the Beef and pork farmers, after all they're used to it. You can not make the assumption that if supply management had come to the pork industry that it would somehow be hugely succesful today. No one can accurately say that. As for Dairy.......they're in every issue of OF with all sorts of law suits over quota. They have effectively cut any young farmer out of the business (unless they inherit it), they have diminished their numbers to less than 1/10th of what they were 25 years ago (at least in this township), they have increased their debt load so they could never be competitve on a world market (when that comes), I'm told there are more Dairy farmers than Pork farmers before Debt Review. If supply management was in pork the numbers would be less than half what they are today. How many jobs would that destroy and could the industry support itself with that much less infrastructure?
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