HALIFAX, N.S. — Members of Dairy Farmers of Nova Scotia will vote Aug. 5 on whether to abandon a four-year-old deal that has capped dairy quota values in five provinces.
If farmers at a DFNS special meeting in Truro decide to pull out of the 2009 deal between members of the P5 (Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island) to cap quota at $25,000 per kilogram of butterfat, it will have repercussions within the interprovincial dairy system.
“Clearly if the cap is raised, there would be consequences of not following the P5 agreement that we signed,” DFNS chair Havey Whidden said.
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“It is a signed agreement.”
As chair, Whidden said he is not taking public sides on the issue.
Other provinces are watching.
Dairy Farmers of Ontario notes that the 2009 deal to standardize policies was intended to create equity be-tween producers in the affected provinces.
“A withdrawal from that commitment would need to be assessed by other P5 provinces in the context of the overall objectives pursued by the P5 harmonization process,” it said in a statement on the issue.
Capping escalating quota prices was also sold as a policy aimed at reducing costs for younger producers trying to enter the dairy business.
Nova Scotia agriculture minister John MacDonell said he is watching closely, although he too is not taking a public position.
“It’s an issue and I do want to say I’m trying to stay very close to it,” he recently said at the end of a federal-provincial agriculture ministers’ meeting in Halifax.
“I see it as significant as much as they deem it to be significant and so I’m hopeful that the members will all come to the same page.”
The quota cap has been a controversial issue in Nova Scotia since it started.
Farmer critics went to court, complaining that a board decision to impose a value was a confiscation of their property. In some cases, they had paid more than $25,000 for their quota.
Both the Nova Scotia Supreme Court and the appeals court have ruled that DFNS has the right to regulate the amount and price of quota.
Dairy farmer Doug Bacon, one of the leading dissidents who led the court challenge, said after the decision that producers would lose millions of dollars worth of quota value.
DFNS responded in a submission to the court: “It (quota) has never been designed or intended to be an asset or retirement vehicle for dairy farmers.”
However, enough producers oppose the cap that they were able to elect allies to the DFNS board and force this week’s special meeting to consider ending it.
MacDonell said the courts have sided with the dairy board, but producers have the right to try changing the policy.
“I’m certainly a big supporter of democracy,” he said.
“I’m going to be a bystander to see what comes out of the meeting. My understanding is that there is a fair bit of the membership that’s supportive of the cap.”
Western provinces do not impose quota price caps.
