Dairy program selection process irks applicants

Monday, December 14, 2009

by SUSAN MANN

Some applicants to the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s new entrant quota assistance program want to withdraw their applications.

George MacNaughton, Dairy Farmers production division director, says some applicants have said they don’t want to participate after learning a random draw would determine who would be accepted into the program. He says he doesn’t know how many applicants plan to withdraw.

The organization received 64 applications by the program’s Nov. 30 deadline.

MacNaughton says after reviewing the packages to ensure they are complete, Dairy Farmers will write applicants to offer them an opportunity to withdraw.

A third-party, an auditing firm not yet selected, will review the remaining applications to ensure they meet the program criteria and are financially sound. The firm will randomly select 10 from the list of eligible applicants.

Successful applicants will be told by February before the running of the March quota exchange.

As part of the program, Dairy Farmers will lend each successful applicant 12 kilograms of quota to help them get started in the industry. They must also acquire 12 kgs of quota themselves. Dairy Farmers will gradually take back the quota starting in the sixth year of the program for farmers who received the full 12 kgs.

The high number of applicants “shows that there’s interest in producing milk in the province of Ontario,” MacNaughton says.

The New Entrant Quota Assistance program is part of a package of new quota policies that were brought in Aug. 1 by Dairy Farmers of Ontario and the four other provinces in the P5 – Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec. BF