Dairy farmers plan fall incentive days

by SUSAN MANN

The Dairy Farmers of Ontario board approved fall incentive days for four months later this year to ensure milk production meets the demand during the fall.

The days are: two in each of August, September and November and three in October. An extra incentive day was added to October because it is the month with the lowest production in the fall. The incentive days are issued on a non-cumulative basis and are only available to producers in the month they were issued.

Bill Mitchell, Dairy Farmers assistant communications director, says there’s a slight seasonal production decline in the fall that’s compounded by a slight seasonal rise in on-demand milk during the same time. The fall incentive days are there to provide a signal to dairy farmers to produce more milk and to counteract that seasonal production decline.

The board approved the recommendation from the P5 quota committee to add the incentive days. The P5 is made up of five Eastern Canadian provinces - Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island - that share revenue from industrial and fluid milk markets and work cooperatively on other matters of mutual interest.

Milk production levels are strong and appear to be on target to meet the four per cent quota increase that has taken place within the last year.

Dairy Farmers most recent finalized numbers are November 2011 and production then was 208.3 million litres, up 2.3 per cent from 203.5 million litres in November 2010. The December production numbers will be finalized later this month. BF