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Friday, June 30, 2017
International Dairy Groups Also Protesting Canada Policy
Dairy industry organizations from the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, the European Union, Mexico and Argentina are urging their top trade officials to "pursue all avenues available" to challenge a new Canadian pricing policy they say breaches commitments on export subsidies."Canada's increasingly protectionist policies are diverting trade with attendant global price-depressing impacts, and are in conflict with the principles of free markets and fair and transparent trade," the groups wrote in a letter sent Tuesday.The Canadian dairy industry created a new pricing program that allowed Canadian cheese makers and dairy processors to buy at the lowest world price milk protein products created as a byproduct of manufacturing of butter and other milkfat. There has been an excess supply of those milk protein products because of increased demand for butter and other milkfats.The new policy priced out most U.S. exports of ultra-filtered milk, one of the few dairy products U.S. producers could ship duty free to Canada without being subject to the country's strict supply management program. Dairy producers in some countries have noted that Canada's excess milk protein is now showing up on the world market, threatening to suppress prices.