WHITEWATER REGION — The recent announcement that dairy farmers would be affected by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will affect the 68 dairy producers in Renfrew County – and all are family farms.
But, it’s not just the producers who will be affected, said Barend van Lindenberg, chairman of the Renfrew County Dairy Producers.
“It will affect the whole economy of Renfrew County,” he stated. “Everyone loses. Maybe that barn the farmer was going to build won’t be built, or that new piece of equipment won’t be bought.”
What is disheartening is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said all along that “Supply management will not be a bargaining chip.
“He sold us out,” Mr. van Lindenberg said.
Dairy producers believe they were pawns in the agreement, he said.
“What’s really disheartening is that the US will now dictate to us what we can and can’t do,” he said, adding, “It’s like we have become a State they control. They will tell us how much we can import and the price. Exporting will be based on the U.S. dollar.”
USMCA replaces NAFTA, which has been under discussion for years, noted Tony Straathof, a Westmeath area dairy farmer and president of the Renfrew County National Farmers Union, in a press release.
“As I walked around the barn milking the cows and feeding calves, it was obvious that, for the cattle, nothing had changed,” he said. “Yet for dairy and other supply managed farmers, a significant change has occurred.”
America has pushed for and achieved freer movement of agriculture products to both Canada and Mexico, but they have not given up any protection of their sugar and cotton industries, said Mr. Straathof. Canada did stay firm on retaining Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 which call for an independent third party to resolve trade irritations instead of the US preference to adjudicate in the American court system. A process that Canada felt was not transparent and independent, he added.
While not all the information regarding the agreement is known, Mr. van Lindenberg said the Dairy Farmers of Ontario and Dairy Farmers of Canada are working hard to find out the details, so the farmers won’t be in the dark.
“I’ve talked to a few dairy producers and they’re shocked and angry,” Mr. van Lindenberg said. “Some have said they will see a decrease in their revenues, some as much as 10 percent or more.”
Many will have to find where they can rein in their costs, which could mean laying off employees or not buying equipment or even putting the construction of a building on hold, he said.
Mr. van Lindenberg encourages the consumers to help the agricultural sector by purchasing local as much as possible, or at least products from Ontario or Canada.
However, he believes, “People around here are supportive of the agricultural sector.”
Of all the commodities, services, and rules to abide by in a trade agreement, food and its production are the most precious, Mr. Straathof said. In the months leading up to NAFTA 2.0, Canadian farmers have been asking consumers to check food labels and buy products labelled “100 percent Canadian Milk.” Those purchasing food have been answering the call, and a true symbiotic relationship has evolved, he added. But, there remains a gaping hole in label regulations for fast food, bakery products/complete foods, and frozen prepared foods.
“All Canadians, eaters and growers, need to demand that those products identify where their ingredients are sourced from, so consumers can make informed choices and support Canadian farmers,” Mr. Straathof stressed.
While there has been discussion of compensation to the dairy farmers, if it’s a one-time payout, what happens the rest of the years they are in business.
The Canadian government has promised compensation for the supply management sectors to make up for market losses, but for an agriculture sector that has not relied on any government subsidies and has taken pride in their sustainability, dependence on a government handout is uncomfortable, Mr. Straathof stated.
This is a bad outcome for dairy farmers and the whole dairy sector, said Pierre Lampron, president of Dairy Farmers of Canada.
“The Government has conceded access to our domestic market to the US, affecting our ability to produce Canadian milk,” he said. “By doing so, it is slowly bleeding Canada’s dairy sector.”
This deal not only gives more access to the Canadian dairy market, while limiting Canadian farmers the ability to produce and export home-grown dairy products; this deal lets the Americans dictate Canadian dairy policies, he continued. Fairer trade is about win-win results. If the Canadian government fought for a good deal for Canadian industry, it wasn’t dairy.
Conceding parts of our market to the US does not tell the whole story, he said.
“Canadian products made with locally produced milk from Canadian dairy farms are being pushed off the shelves to make way to US-imported products,” Mr. Lampron said. “Once the recent trade deals come in effect, the total dairy imports will make up approximately 18 percent of the Canadian dairy market. In other words, the thousand cuts from cumulative trade deals over the past decades will have displaced 18 percent of our homegrown high-quality milk. At the farm gate alone, this represents an annual loss of $1.3 billion for farmers.”
While this is staggering enough, the true damage caused by USMCA is not limited to the access granted to the US, he said. The government has decided to tie dairy farmers hands on the other side of the equation; constricting the Canadian dairy sector’s ability to export Canadian high-quality dairy products, not only to the US, and Mexico, but also around the world, he said. As part of the USMCA, Canada has agreed to the US demands to cap Canadian exports of skim milk powder, milk protein concentrates, and infant formula. Added together, these measures also limit our ability to grow the Canadian domestic market.
“Our government is not only allowing the dismantling of our dairy model in Canada, it is giving up our sovereign right to also benefit from future trade agreements,” Mr. Lampron said. “The total access given up by the federal government in the past decades is bad enough, but now, we (farmers and processors together) are not able to compete in our own market, nor to export high quality dairy. Canada caved in to the US demands to ensure our dairy products would not compete with American made ones on the world markets. So much for Canadian sovereignty.”
