HAMILTON, ONT. – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter storm accusing Canada of unfairness to American dairy farmers could have profound consequences for one local Jewish family.
To Dave Loewith and his relatives, it’s a threat to the business model that has given them a level of financial security that many farmers can only imagine.
His parents, Joe and Minna, took up dairy farming just outside Hamilton, Ont., in 1938. They escaped Europe just ahead of the Nazi hordes by promising to farm in Canada for five years. They moved to their current location in Lynden – between Hamilton and Brantford – in 1947. Today, Dave Loewith and his brother Carl are partners in the venture.
Farming has always been a financially risky business where producers have little or no control over the final price of their products. Since 1965, however, Canadian dairy producers like the Loewiths have benefited from a system called supply management.
The program seeks to balance the amount of milk produced by the country’s 12,000 dairy farms with the amount processors need to meet consumer demand. By maintaining that balance, the system ensures stable prices for farmers like Loewith, ensures they don’t have to rely on government subsidies and avoids the oceans of surplus milk now washing over American farmland.
In 2016, Canadian farmers received an average price of 79 cents a litre, compared to 49 cents in the U.S. (Both figures are in Canadian dollars.)
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