Show farmers some respect

Re: Dairy farmers beat U.S. with good old competition, May 9

As a third- generation Canadian poultry producer, I have watched the debate on the merits or lack therein of supply management.

I am grateful to reporter Peter Kuitenbrouwer for publishing some details about how dairy farmers are adjusting to competition.

That said, what has been frustrating in this debate has been an absence of a more fulsome discussion of the facts. There is an assumption that if supply management was thrown out, Canadian consumers would bask in “cheap” dairy and poultry products.

The media do not point out that in New Zealand, where supply management was dismantled, the price per litre of milk today is more than it is in Canada. The U. S. dairy industry is heavily subsidized by the U. S. Farm Bill. Make no mistake: this is a tax that all U.S. taxpayers fund.

Is this the direction towards which Canadians want to move?

The hog industry, which never had supply management, has seen producers at times unable to even come close to recouping their costs, but this never translates into my bacon suddenly being cheaper.

Today a poultry producer in Canada receives roughly $ 1.60/ kg for chicken. In stores the price can be up to $10/kg for the finished product. So someone else is getting $8.40/kg. And that’s for regular product; premium products sell for even more. The poultry producer does not set the retail price; further, the price of quota is not recouped in the cost of production formulas, nor has it ever been. Currently in B.C., the poultry margin is giving producers a 3.2 per cent return on investment.

We s upply Canadians with l ocal and transparently priced proteins for a very modest return. My challenge is to the Canadian media and politicians to put all of the facts on the table and show some respect to hard- working Canadian farm families. Mark Driediger, Abbotsford, B. C.