Dairy farmers in
Wisconsin have noticed a drop in sales to Ontario since the Dairy
Farmers of Ontario marketing board dropped prices to become more
competitive.
Agropur, a
farmer-owned dairy processor, stopped importing diafiltered milk it
was using to make cheeses after the Ontario board dropped milk prices
for that market.
Saputo Inc.,
Canada’s largest dairy company, has yet to follow suit.
But already American
dairy farmers are talking about asking their government to file a
trade complaint.
“This
is not just about us, it’s about thousands of family farms that
will lose money over this” if sales to Canada dry up, said Goedhart
Westers, vice-president of business development for
Grassland Dairy Products Inc., the Wisconsin supplier of diafiltered
milk for Canadian cheese makers.
If
Canada stymies U.S. sales, Washington should complain to the World
Trade Organization, said Jaime Castaneda, the U.S. Dairy Export
Council’s senior vice-president of trade policy.
“We
have made clear to the Canadian government that we expect that they
will not take any action to disrupt current U.S. exports of dairy
products,” said Matt McAlvanah, spokesman for the U.S. Trade
Representative in
an article in the Globe and Mail.
There is likely little the Americans could do about Ontario’s
policy of competitive pricing, but Quebec’s dairy farmers and
provincial government are talking about changing cheese standards to
eliminate diafiltered milk and that would probably result in a U.S.
complaint to the WTO.
Simply filing a complaint ends up costing Canadians hundreds of
thousands in legal and consulting fees. Canada lost a key WTO
decision and appeal over dairy exports when the U.S. complained that
supply management amounts to a subsidy enabling low-priced exports.
