Canada’s dairy
industry needs to adopt more radical reforms than it has so far considered,
says Al Mussel, senior policy analyst at the George Morris Centre.
For example, he says
provincial balkanization needs to end so the industry can have a national marketplace,
particularly for processing companies so they can achieve economies of scale.
The marketing boards
have been making moves towards national milk pricing and pooling, but Mussel
says these reforms fall short of what’s going to be needed to face increasing
challenges, such as intensifying import pressures.
“The new deal that
needs to be struck between the federal government, provincial governments, and
producers is to make dairy policy truly national, and in return the system may
be sustainable and capable of delivering on the demands of its stakeholders,”
writes Mussel in his final of a series of reports on the Canadian dairy
industry.
“Failure to secure
this deal places the system under risk of renewed balkanization and prolonged lack
of investment in dairy processing,” he says.
Mussel says
politicians need to consult today’s dairy farmers about what they want from the
system.
Today’s industry and
its challenges and opportunities have changed from the 1970s when national
supply management took hold.
The full report is
posted on the George Morris Centre website at www.georgemorris.org .
