Dairy farmers boost production

Thursday, April 28, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario dairy farmers and their colleagues in four eastern Canadian provinces can produce milk above their quota holdings this spring thanks to a decision by the P5 quota committee to add incentive production days starting next month.

Dairy Farmers of Ontario ratified the committee’s decision at its board meeting Wednesday. Farmers are getting one incentive day in May and two days for each of June and July. The normal fall incentive days begin in August with farmers getting two days for each of August, September, October and November.

Bill Mitchell, Dairy Farmers assistant communications director, says one incentive day enables a farmer to produce an average of three per cent above their individual quota holdings.

The incentive days were added because milk production in the P5 provinces, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, was about 0.5 per cent below quota levels for the first six months of the dairy year.

“The market has been growing and we’ve been trying to grow production,” Mitchell says. “Producers have been trying to respond the best they can but it takes time.”

Mitchell says production is improving. “We’re basically expecting to fill our quota now in April. We’ll probably need to run slightly above that level (the quota level) for the next few months to both respond to the growing market and to rebuild butter stocks.”

The dairy boards in the other four provinces in the Eastern Canadian milk pooling agreement also ratified the P5 quota committee’s decision this week, he says. BF