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According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, annual per cow milk production rose 12 per cent across a 10-year span by 2017. This past spring, U.S. milk prices fell to a 10-year low. (DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo)
I came late to the realization that the grated Parmesan cheese we liberally sprinkled over the kids pizzas was bulked up with cellulose. The product manufacturer would no doubt take issue with my use of the phrase “bulked up” and instead defend the practise of adding, er, wood fibre to the “cheese” as an effective method to keep the “cheese” from clumping.
This is a short-hand way of explaining why Italian cheese makers get so fussed about the imprimatur of the real deal, the country’s Parmigiano-Reggiano, which in my books sits at the zenith of cheesedom, falling from the rasp like snow upon a nest of pasta al limone.
Cheese is worth protecting. I am with the Italians on this.
It was, in fact, a conversation with a Pennsylvania dairy farmer a year ago that caused me to ask: what’s in our cheese and, whatever happened to serving whole milk in schools, and what’s the difference between dairy farming in Ontario and dairy farming in, say, Wisconsin?
This being NAFTA week, dairy (and chicks and eggs) emerged once again as one of the negotiating sticking points for a renewed three-way trade deal.
The tyranny of deadlines demands that this column be written prior to Friday’s developments, but it was clear that the ideologically simplistic calls through the spring and into summer for the full dismantling of our supply management system — in favour of what exactly? — would go unheeded.
As for modifications, if I were a betting person I would put money on a phased-in rebalancing of the pricing strategy that grants favoured status to Canadian ultrafiltered milk, a topic that I have painfully pursued in this space before.
But about that Pennsylvanian farmer: here’s a comment he made that stuck with me: “We’ve known for 35 years or more that we need a supply management program.”
This is a piece of the dairy drama that conventionally gets missed amid the broad assertion that Canada’s system of supply management be dumped. The market interference is clearly in conflict with the interests of Canadian consumers, the argument goes.
The U.S.-Canada retail price differential on milk is the standard citation used to urge Canadians to get on board with this thinking. A quick portrait of “millionaire” Canadian dairy farmers as a group is often sketched. And the strength of the dairy lobby usually draws a mention.
So what’s it like to be a dairy farmer in the land of the free and the home of the brave?
For many dairy farmers the answer ranges from dire straits to crisis.
We can look to the mid-August gathering of dairy farmers called by Agri-Mark Inc., a co-operative representing 1,000 or so dairy farms in New England and New York State. The testimonials from dairy farmers express a high degree of distress.
There’s too much milk production. Milk surpluses are out of control. Past efforts to put controls in place have failed and failed again. Here’s a comment from one young farmer: “We need to get something done because there are a lot of farmers who won’t last another year or two in this market.”
Reaching back in time, prior to the signing of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, we see the U.S. federal government paying dairy farmers to cut production. That didn’t work. Two years later marked the launch of the unpleasantly titled Dairy Termination Program of 1985 in which farmers were paid to dispose of — slaughter or export — dairy cows. That reduced the national head count of dairy cattle by 1.5 million at a cost of $1.8 billion (U.S.). Milk production increased.
Fast forward to the modern day. Take a look at New York State, where governor Andrew Cuomo extolled the growth of the dairy industry, prodded by tax credits and expansion financing. Milk production increases vastly outpaced the national average — 2.2 per cent in 2013 versus 0.4 per cent growth nationwide. The following year the governor crowed that the sector, so important to his economic growth plan, had reclaimed the number three spot in the rankings of the country’s milk production.
Everything rosy? Far from it. A Greek yogurt maker, wooed with $14 million in tax credits, lasted little more than two years. Over production has massively depressed milk prices. Operational efficiencies have increased: According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, annual per cow milk production rose 12 per cent across a 10-year span to 23,000 pounds annually by 2017. This past spring, milk prices fell to a 10-year low.
Last month, Gov. Cuomo announced a $30-million fund to assist dairy farmers in converting their operations to non-dairy, but still agricultural, operations. There’s been a raft of bad news.
In June, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced the creation of a dairy task force to come up with actions that state can take to maintain a viable dairy industry.
“The Dairy farmers are facing challenges due to an extended period of low milk prices and market uncertainty,” Walker said then. “By creating this task force, industry experts can work together to create real solutions that can help our farmers, processors, and allied organizations, and to ensure that our dairy industry is not only our past, but our future.”
A solution can’t come quickly enough and task forces are rarely up to the, well, task. At that August meeting of farmers organized by Agri-Mark, one Wisconsin farmer addressed Walker’s task force, hoping that “some sort of assistance program” would be devised.
“We’re fighting with one foot in the grave,” he said, noting that one of his neighbours recently had to sell off 200 cows and was going out of business quietly. “I’m not leaving without a fight,” he said.
More than a dozen proposals were submitted to the Agri-Mark gathering. The phrase “supply management” came up a lot. Mark McAfee, executive director of the California Dairy Campaign, submitted a proposal for a Sustainable Milk Inventory System Act. It’s a 12-point plan built on establishing a national program of dairy inventory management. Sounds familiar. McAfee summarized the act as a “U.S. version of the Canadian system with improvements.”
Long term stability requires a structural overhaul. Lost in the call on this side of the border for an end to supply management are the voices in the U.S. dairy industry who see a similar program as the most effective way to protect the future of an industry.
Source: thestar.com
