Reuters — Canadian farmers are stepping up their campaign against a nearly complete Pacific trade pact they fear will destroy protections for local dairy, egg and chicken producers and endanger jobs. Farmers in Quebec, which produces 40 per cent of Canada’s dairy products, ran full-page newspaper advertisements on Tuesday warning Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations threaten […] Read more
Supply-managed sectors bolster defenses against TPP
Canada says will defend dairy protection at TPP talks
Ottawa | Reuters — Canada will continue to defend its system of tariffs and quotas that protect dairy farmers, a senior official said on Monday, in comments that could worry nations negotiating a Pacific trade treaty. Canada is under pressure at talks to create a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) because concessions sought by the other 11 […] Read more
Election timing puts Tories in bind on Pacific trade talks
Ottawa | Reuters –– Canada is facing a tough squeeze at talks on a major Pacific trade treaty because the concessions other nations want it to make could cause serious problems for the governing Conservatives in this October’s general election. Canada, one of 12 nations aiming to create the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is under pressure […] Read more
Supply management limits growth in Canada, Saputo says
Reuters — Canada’s tightly managed dairy sector limits domestic opportunities for Saputo, the country’s largest dairy, forcing it to focus on growth elsewhere, the company’s chief executive said Thursday. CEO Lino Saputo Jr. emphasized in an interview that the company is not lobbying Ottawa to either dismantle or preserve Canada’s supply management system for dairy, […] Read more
Lessons to learn from Quebec’s agriculture and agri-food industry
Canada is about food and Quebec is about processing — employing 475,189 in 2,100 facilities, most co-operatively owned
Reading Time: 3 minutes I spend a lot of time in Quebec and find the culture and the history of the province fascinating. It is in many regards, Canada’s little bit of Europe and the feel in the country is cosy. What most folks don’t see as they travel the countryside past long narrow tracks of land, vineyards and […] Read more
Conference board’s supply management reform ill conceived
Scrapping the current system would require government to subsidize both domestic production and exports
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Conference Board of Canada embraces the mantra that “all growth is good.” Its plan to change supply management for growth is a prescription for weakening, if not eliminating, the three pillars of supply management for dairy production in Canada — production controls, import tariffs and farmers’ cost-of-production pricing — in order to produce more […] Read more
The time has come to scrap supply management
Canada has a unique opportunity to supply the world with dairy products, but first it must phase out supply management
Reading Time: 2 minutes Dairy supply management is an old solution to an old problem. The approach of setting dairy prices, controlling production, and controlling imports has been costly to Canadians as a whole and to dairy farmers for a long time. Today, Canada has an opportunity to break with supply management for the benefit of everyone — and […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
