EDMONTON — Dairy Farmers of Canada remains confident it has continuing support for supply management.
“The strategy is to continue to be agile and build trust and good relationships with government. We do have that,” said government relations director Isabelle Bouchard.
“The prime minister has been very supportive of our industry,” she said at the organization’s annual meeting held in Edmonton July 18-19.
“It is not going to be a walk in the park and I am not saying nothing will happen to us, but Canadians are aware of us and the good quality milk you are providing, so that can help us have a minimal impact on our industry,” she said.
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The organization has been working with government on a strategy as the North American Free Trade Agreement is renegotiated, and a social media campaign was launched to tell Canadians how the system works.
NAFTA negotiations are scheduled to start the third week of August with a ministerial meeting followed by meetings at the senior official level, said Yves Leduc, director of policy and trade with DFC.
The United States released its negotiating objectives, but these were fairly broad.
“There was no mention of dairy,” he said. “However, if you read in between the lines, you can see some of these broader objectives with some of the demands by the U.S. dairy sector. The U.S. dairy lobby has been very aggressive with a long list of demands.”
The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement signing is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 21, and information on cheese quotas should be known by the end of August. The dairy transition program is supposed to be announced after the allocation, he said.
The World Trade Organization is meeting at the ministerial level in December, where negotiators hope to reach an agreement on domestic support.
DFC is also paying attention to the committee on agriculture because the U.S., Australia and New Zealand are challenging Canadian dairy policy.
“They are very aggressive, so we continue to closely monitor the situation,” he said.
Outgoing president Wally Smith believes the dairy industry will continue to thrive, and various new agreements have left it relatively unscathed.
“TPP was a victory for sure, and CETA was satisfactory. In terms of the impact of trade negotiations, we left Canadian farmers in very good shape,” he said in an interview before turning over the reins to new president Pierre Lampron.
He believes Canadians support the domestic industry.
“There is a lot of trust in the producers and how Canadian milk is produced on the farm. There is never any question of the integrity of the product,” he said.
