Why is milk so expensive? Why are dairy cows so skinny?
Ask and you shall be answered, says Alberta Milk.
The industry group launched a website feature Aug. 13 called Ask a Dairy Farmer.
Conrad Van Hierden, a dairy farmer from Fort Macleod, Alta., likes the idea of using social media more extensively to answer questions from any direction.
“As social media evolves, why not do it, and get the positive spin on what actually happens on a dairy farm,” said the farmer, who milks 160 cows.
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Van Hierden said he is often asked about animal health, supply management and milk cost. Though he answers those questions, a wider audience can get information via the new web interface.
“It’s an open forum that will give a lot of people input and get answers from a lot of different people.”
He said questions about how milk quality is maintained and queries about regulations are most common in his face-to-face experience.
“Another question I get quite regularly is why is the price of milk what it is? Our price of milk is set by a cost of production formula where we can maintain a certain pricing without having ups and downs.”
The answer on the website reads: “Prices for Canadian dairy products are comparable to prices in other countries. … It costs between $1.25-$1.50 per litre in Canada, while in the U.S., consumers pay about $1 a litre, in China $1.70, in Australia $1 to $1.55, in New Zealand $1.65.”
Alberta Milk clearly wants to impart information about the supply management system under which the dairy industry functions. The organization seeded the initial Ask a Dairy Farmer site with its own questions, among them “how many subsidies do dairy farmers get from the government?”
The answer, says the site, is none.
“Those questions are frequently asked questions we get a lot of the time in regards to how the dairy industry works, so we thought we’d start there,” said Alberta Milk communications specialist Jacquie Lycka.
The first external question had been posed as of Aug. 14 and work was underway to post an answer.
“We’re hoping that will get the ball rolling and we’ll have more come in over the next few days and weeks,” said Lycka.
Speed of response will depend on the complexity of the question. Alberta Milk technical staff and dairy producers will be called upon to answer, depending on the topic.
“There are a lot of misconceptions about the dairy industry,” Lycka said. “The main goal of the site is to get people more acquainted with where their milk comes from.”
Alberta Milk general manager Mike Southwood said in a news release that misinformation is a major concern.
“When they don’t understand, they make assumptions and many of these assumptions are simply not true,” Southwood said.
