On paper, it’s not a fair fight: a dozen nations representing 40 per cent of the world’s economic output versus 12,000 Canadian dairy farms.
Why Canadian dairy farmers are worried about the Trans-Pacific Partnership: ‘We could go out of business’
Christinne Muschi for National Post
At Quebec’s largest agricultural fair, dairy farmer Andrew Shufelt is trimming and brushing the coat of an Ayrshire named Princess to get her ready for a cattle judging competition.
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But Canada’s dairies are protected by some of the world’s most restrictive agricultural trade barriers, which helped to stall talks last month just as negotiators were closing in on a trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Other nations are pressing Canada to open its dairy market in the accord, a top priority of U.S. President Barack Obama. Agricultural issues, along with auto imports and drug patents, have emerged as one of the thorniest areas of disagreement holding up the pact.
“This is a social question about the quality of life, for us and for the animals,” said Real Gauthier, as he walked through a barn housing 90 cows on a farm 50 kilometres northwest of Montreal in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec.
Canadians take pride in contrasting their family dairy farms with mega milking-operations in the U.S., even as they pay an average of 23 per cent more for milk. Put in place in the 1970s, the “supply management” system limits production and imports.
It is seen as a way to avoid emergency government aid to dairies, said Maurice Doyon, an economics professor at Laval University in Quebec City. It eliminates booms and busts, effectively letting small farmers stay in business while consumers pay a fair — but higher — price for milk, he said.
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The social benefit is stable farms and communities, he said. “People see it as more than an answer to an economic problem. People see it as a way to keep family farms all over the country,” he said.
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