Ag Secretary Perdue voices concerns with ultra-filtered milk trade to Ag Minister MacAulay

Jun 06, 2017

Much of the discussions revolved around trade relationships

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Ultra-filtered milk trade highlighed the conversations between U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Canadian Minister of Agriculture Lawrence MacAulay during their first official meeting on June 5 in Toronto.

Other discussion topics included NAFTA, but Perdue voiced his concerns with Canada's Class 7 designation and the potential impact it could have on the U.S. dairy industry.

“…I made it very clear that the Class 7 designation we felt was an unfair undercutting of the U.S. industry that grew up south of the U.S.-Canada border,” Secretary Perdue said in a June 5 release.

Photo: Sonny Perdue/Twitter

“It cut these (American) producers and this industry out of shipping the ultra-filtered milk into their (Canadian) cheese industry, which was in demand in Canada. I also said, if you want to manage your dairy supply with supply management, that’s fine. You just need to manage it and not overproduce to create a glut of milk solids on the world market that’s being dumped at unfair prices.”

Minister MacAulay outlined Canada’s commitment to working with the U.S. Administration to help the agricultural trade relationship, worth US$47 billion in 2016, flourish.

"I look forward to working closely with Secretary Perdue and the new U.S. Administration to further strengthen our important agricultural relationship,” Minister MacAulay said in a June 5 statement.

“Canada will continue to develop our ties with the U.S. in areas including trade, science, regulations and the environment. I'm confident that we can reinforce this relationship in a balanced manner, allowing us to boost farmers' bottom lines and create good, middle class jobs on both sides of the border."

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.