The federal government has failed to effectively deal with the problem of cheap dairy substitute products partly because bureaucrats are unsympathetic to supply management, says a key official from the dairy farmer lobby.
At a recent Parliament Hill meeting with MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee, Dairy Farmers of Canada leaders insisted the government must act before summer to curb or cap imports of milk protein concentrates that are displacing hundreds of millions of litres of domestic milk sales.
The farmers say it has cost them $500 million in lost sales.
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Richard Doyle, executive secretary of DFC, argued that six years of inaction on dairy substitute import issues is in part because DFC demands for protection land on the desks of officials in trade or finance departments where the philosophy is to promote freer trade.
The answer, he said, is to have strong ministers who demand results.
DFC president Jacques Laforge said stronger political leadership is needed in government: “In a nutshell, this is all about leadership. It’s about giving direction to what has to be done.”
Still, the dairy farmer lobby has not convinced the Conservative government to control the dairy substitute imports. It also has not convinced dairy processors to quit using the cheaper, imported substitutes.
Agriculture minister Chuck Strahl has asked dairy farmers and processors to try to resolve some industry problems together, but the dairy farmers have said they will do so only if the first priority is to find a rapid solution to the import issue.
Neither Strahl nor leaders of the Dairy Processors’ Association of Canada accept that import controls are necessary.
Processor president Don Jarvis told MPs at the same meeting that the core problem facing the industry is high milk prices that drive down consumption and make Canadian products uncompetitive when there is a consumer alternative.
