Simple solution to dairy crisis

I am an Island dairy farmer and my milk is shipped and processed by Amalgamated Dairies Ltd., based in Summerside. This summer I ordered a 473 ml ADL chocolate milk with my meal at two separate restaurants on Prince Edward Island within a 24-hour time period. Farm gate value paid to me for that volume of milk was 30 cents. One restaurant charged me $4.20 for the milk and the other one charged $2.50.

The food service businesses’ pricing policy was lawful of course, but in my view not reasonable or fair to consumers.

If the same volume of milk had been priced at the current ‘mailbox’ price for dairy farmers in the United States, the farm gate value for that volume of milk would have been 22 cents CDN. At that price, U.S. dairy farmers are really hurting and need higher prices to end yet another farm crisis in America.

What I have always found so absurd about agriculture policy, is how simple the solution at the farm gate needs to be to bring financial stability to the rural areas around the world. Why must the political class, think tank economists and industrialists be so obdurate to policy solutions for rural people? Eight measly cents for a chocolate milk is the difference between a healthy industry building new barns and expanding processing facilities and a dairy hole is so deep, and people have lost so much money, it’s going to take a lot to get out of the hole. Randall Affleck,

Lower Bedeque