The North
American Free Trade Agreement negotiations present an opportunity for Canadians
to reform dairy policy to improve the industry, writes agricultural economist
Karl Meilke, professor emeritus at the University of Guelph.
For
example, he says the cap on quota-trading prices in Ontario and Quebec should
be scrapped and other measures should be taken to make quota more affordable so
dairy farms could expand to more efficient and competitive scale and new people
could get into dairy farming.
Sorry, Karl, but it won't happen as long as the provincial marketing boards are dominated by farmers who don't want anything to change. Why should they because the system has made them comfortable millionaires?
“The
industry desperately needs the opportunity to consolidate and move milk
production from its current location and into the hands of its most efficient
producers. In this way, it will be better positioned to meet additional foreign
competition,” Meilke writes.
He notes
that reforms have been urged for decades, beginning with the Food Prices Review
Board and the Economic Council of Canada in the early 1970s and including
crtitiques by agricultural economists such as Richard Barichello and John
Cranfield.
The paper
he has written that includes the call for reforms is about the NAFTA
negotiations. He says there is little need for changing NAFTA because it has
worked well for the three countries and there have been hardly any complaints
and disputes, considering the volume of trade.
