Dairy producers debate quota cap

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

by SUSAN MANN

A motion to put a cap on the amount of dairy quota each Ontario licence holder can have was defeated at the Dairy Farmers of Ontario fall policy conference in Alliston last week.

Proposed by the Renfrew Dairy Producer Committee, the resolution initially called for the cap to be 250 kilograms per licence holder.

Bill Mitchell, Dairy Farmers assistant communications director, says the motion was amended to remove the number. The motion delegates defeated was that Dairy Farmers consider incorporating a cap.

There are 4,218 Ontario licences holding 268,478 kgs of quota. From 2004 to 2009 the number of licences holding more than 250 kgs increased to 2.2 per cent from 1.2 per cent. The group holding more than 250 kgs each of quota produced 13.2 per cent of the Ontario quota. “If this continues over the next five years, 4.4 per cent of the licences could produce 26.4 per cent of the quota,” it says in the conference papers.

Currently there are several farmers with more than 1,000 kgs. At that level “we would only need 268 licences in Ontario,” it says in the papers.

But the Renfrew Committee is concerned the industry is jeopardizing the support it gets from government by letting large producers continue to produce such a big portion of the province’s milk.

Mitchell says delegates in favour of the cap said it would maintain more farms. On the other side were delegates who said farmers need to have the option to choose the farm size that allows them to be efficient.

There isn’t a cap on the maximum amount of quota producers can hold. But they are required to get approval from Dairy Farmers before they exceed 150 kgs and again before exceeding each subsequent 100 kg level. The minimum amount of quota producers are required to hold is 10 kgs.

Farmers in the New Entrant Quota Assistance program must hold at least 12 kgs of their own quota at all times to be eligible to continue in that program. BF