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Alberta dairy farmers anxious about USMCA

“The recent announcement regarding the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is positive news for NY farmers”. Well, the US supply is full of chemically altered milk which is actually banned in Canada.

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Farmers note that Canadian governments have offered slices of the dairy market in free trade deals with both the European Union and Pacific nations in recent years. Hundreds of people from across the country are checking out booths with everything from robotic milking machines to cow-themed artwork.

Under that pricing scheme, the Canadian government would look at the world market price for powered milk and set the Canadian price paid to dairy farmers at around 35 percent below the world price each month, explained Gordon.

KATIE ZIEMER: It’s the biggest show where dairy cattle come together.

Canada has vowed to provide compensation for dairy farmers but details are not yet known. “We limited the damage and preserved our access to the American market”. As a result, implementation of the new trade agreement could take months. It’ll help us keep continuing farming.

“It’s dark days for the dairy industry”, said Hargreaves. The price farmers are paid for their milk dropped from $26 for 100 pounds of milk in 2014 to just $16 now.

For example, if Canada chose to re-create Class 7, under the deal, the Canadian government would be required to: inform the United States of the proposed change; allow the United States to participate in its consultation period, if asked; and consider American demands when making its final decision. The goal was to boost domestic sales. Canada is the second-largest foreign market for Virginia farm products, purchasing more than $296 million in 2016, according to Global Trade Information Services Inc.

Following more than a year of negotiations, the three countries have reached agreement in key areas, including rules of origin for automotive manufacturing, agriculture, labour, intellectual property rights, culture and dispute-settlement. This landmark agreement will send cash and jobs pouring into the United States and into North America. Mark Stephenson heads dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The two countries have imposed increasingly severe tariffs on each other. It was about other markets, too.

“I don’t need their milk production anymore”, he said. NAFTA shuttered thousands of factories and cost upwards of one million USA manufacturing jobs.

Nonetheless, the USA got its way, forcing Canada to yield a larger market share for American dairy farmers.

With the approaching midterm elections of the US Congress, you can only imagine the enthusiasm of the working class and popular bases of the Republican Party in the most rundown cities in the US.

Pence said China has responded to Trump’s tough trade policies against Beijing with tariffs of its own created to inflict maximum political damage.

Trotter said there’s renewed excitement among dairy farmers.

The deal announcement preceded a Monday event at a Duncan farm featuring Henk Schuurmans, of Elmira, Ont., a dairy farmer who has been travelling across the country to urge that this country’s dairy sector remain Canadian.

“It’s not the time to make decisions while in a state of shock”, Groleau said. So this a – certainly a Band-Aid and not a fix. The new round of tariffs from China are said to affect a list of 5,207 products within a range of 5 to 10% as both the USA and China have already slapped each other with tariffs worth $50 billion total.

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Jespersen expects his four-generation family farm will survive the new agreement, but is anxious about how USMCA will affect smaller operations.

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