WINNIPEG – Neil Van Ryssel spent 26 days in the last fiscal year helping negotiate a new pooling arrangement for Canadian dairy farmers.
“The frustration levels and the speed that those pooling negotiations went forward with taxed the patience of Job,” sighed Van Ryssel, chair of the Manitoba Milk Producers.
Speaking at the marketing board’s annual meeting, Van Ryssel said he expects to spend a lot of time in 1996-97 with other provincial leaders ironing out details of the pooling arrangement.
But Van Ryssel said the time spent on meetings was worth it. He said the pooling arrangement will take dairy farmers into the future because it accommodates new world trade rules.
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The first part of the arrangement started on Aug. 1. Producers in Manitoba and the five provinces east of there started sharing all markets and revenue rather than pooling only within a province.
The second part of the arrangement is a pool including Manitoba and the three provinces west of it. Van Ryssel said the second part could start as early as February.
He expects quota policy to be a sticking point in the western pool negotiations. Each province has its own policy, but to make a pool work, they have to harmonize.
Manitoba dairy farmers also saw the effects of new world trade rules on their bottom lines.
Starting in August, they no longer had Canadian Dairy Commission levies to smooth price fluctuations.
Some markets were opened to competition from other countries, so farmers’ revenue depended on who milk processors sold to.
In total, 14 percent of Manitoba’s milk components were sold at lower “world” prices.
Van Ryssel said farmers sold more than 275 million litres of milk, slightly less than the previous year.
