Canada Continues to Protect Dairy

While the Trump administration is focusing attention on dairy policy in the NAFTA 2.0 talks, those north of the border continue to insist that access to their market – or expanded access – is not a point of negotiation.A poll released last week by IPSOS found that 75% of Canadians believe the dairy sector should be defended and that the Canadian government should make more effort to do so in the NAFTA 2.0 negotiations. The survey also found that nine out of 10 Canadians think U.S. dairy products need to be held to the same standards as Canadian products and that should be a part of the NAFTA 2.0 deal.RealAg Radio last week talked with Graham Lloyd, general manager of Dairy Farmers of Ontario, who joined host Shaun Haney to discuss NAFTA 2.0 negotiations and other dairy issues. When Haney asked Lloyd if he felt the Canadian government will continue to protect dairy in the NAFTA 2.0 talks, Lloyd responded, “This government continues to protect us because this a system worth protecting. Canada imports five times what we export to the U.S. Canada is not a solution to the U.S. dairy issue of overproduction.”As for the contentious Class 7 pricing issue, Lloyd said, "It was developed as domestic resource to price the skim components to be competitive with imports. We did not restrict imports. It is up to the processors to decide which products they want to use. It is based on that that we are seeing an increase in spending on processing and milk processing in Canada."