Dairy industry applauds Trump’s tariffs

 

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the United States Dairy Export Council (USDEC) have issued a joint statement strongly supporting the President Donald Trump’s decision to impose 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian dairy imports.

Trump has signed the executive order, but paused implementation until late August.

The tariff aims to gain easier access to the Canadian market.

Trump and the dairy industry have persistently complained about the way Canada administers import quotas.

The Canadian organizations that speak for dairy farmers want Canada to hold firm.

Mandatory COOL not dead

Despite repeated losses in trade decisions, the United States has leading politicians still lobbying for mandatory country-of-origin labelling of meat products.

Among them is Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, R-CALF which lobbies for ranchers and Republican Senator Mike Rounds from South Dakota.

It’s in this context that the The Meat Institute has declared its opposition to a reinstatement of the 2013 Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling .

In a release to media, the Meat Institute cited a new economic analysis by Decision Innovation Solutions that concluded such labeling measures would cost the economy $1 billion via increased expenses for ranchers, processors, retailers and consumers.

Details from the study included the following arguments:

 

• Compliance costs associated with tracking, record keeping, product segregation, labeling and verification would substantially increase costs throughout the beef and pork value chains.

• Those costs would total $1.02 billion for year one ($721 million in beef and $296 million in pork), and would escalate to $4.8 billion through five years and $10.1 billion through 10 years.

• Costs would be passed to consumers, who would pay $835 million more annually for beef and $284 million more for pork.

• Compliance costs for retailers would be $488 million the first year and $5 billion over 10 years.

• Finally, with ground beef’s dependency on imported lean beef, mCOOL compliance costs would range between $202 million and $688 million.

Julie Anna Potts, Meat Institute president and chief executive officer, said the study “proves there are real and significant costs to mCOOL,” adding that the regulation “would burden both packers and livestock producers with added costs at a time when beef packers are losing money due to the smallest herd size in 75 years causing record high prices for cattle.”

Rollins said at a public meeting in April as public meeting in April that she was a “big supporter” of the regulation, adding it was “a transparency question. … Everyone in America should know where their food is coming from.”

Rollins and USDA have pushed processors to adopt the voluntary “Product of USA” labeling program that went into effect at the start of this year, and touted 10 processors that had joined the initiative. None of them is among the top five meat packers in the U.S,

Trump hits dairy, honey with 50 per cent tariffs

United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to place a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian dairy products and honey plus a list of other products including wigs, cement and hockey sticks.

He complained about administration of tariff-rate quotas on U.S. dairy products.

He said Canada treats the European Union better than the U.S. on those tariff-rate quotas. 

They are related to separate trade agreements Canada has negotiated.

Trump used Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which allows a president to impose duties up to 50 per cent on a foreign country that discriminates against U.S. commerce.

Food prices still rising

For the 17^th straight month, grocery store prices increased by more than the general inflation rate.

The increase in June was 3.9 per cent.

Statistics Canada recorded a 2.8 per cent year over year increase in overall prices in June. In May it was 3.2 per cent.

Prices for food purchased from stores grew at a slower pace in June than in May when the increase was 4.3  per cent.

Ontario opens award nominations

 

 The Ontario government is opening nominations for the 2026 Excellence inA griculture Awards.

There are 10 categories.

• Research and Innovation Excellence

• Agribusiness Excellence

• Education Excellence

• Promotional Excellence

• Urban Agriculture Excellence

• Northern Business Excellence

• Indigenous, Métis or Inuit-Owned Business or Indigenous, Métis or Inuit Community Group

Excellence

• Women’s Farming Excellence

• Youth Excellence

• Farm Family Excellence

Nominations are being accepted until September 4.

The website is ontario.ca/excellenceinagriculture.

Anderson to head AgriCorp

 

Robert Anderson of Strathroy has been appointed to a two-year term as chairman of AgriCorp.

He is is the vice-president of operations at Nortera Foods. 

AgriCorp is an Ontario government agency created in 1997 to delivercrop insurance and other agricultural business risk management programs.

Agriculture ministers plan to double AgriStability

Canada’s agriculture ministers plan to double the AgriStability payment cap to $6 million and add paid labour by farm family members as an eligible expense.

They said after a meeting In Halifax that they intend to make the changes before the end of next year.

The priorities during the meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers of agriculture were business risk management, trade diversification and research and innovation.

“These priorities will guide the development of the Next Policy Framework over the coming year,” said federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald.

“The goal is to build a framework that provides the flexibility to respond to regional priorities and evolving needs of the agriculture sector while supporting long-term success and sustainability,” he said.