COVERSTORY By Bill Dimmick Sinking In Stormy Seas U.S. and European dairy farmers seek supply management lifeline I f the current world dairy market were a hurricane, Canada would be nestled comfortably in the eye of the storm. Within the calm of the eye, producers and the rest of the industry go about their business of supplying the domestic market with high-quality dairy products at stable prices. Swirling around them, violent winds tear away at the financial solvency of dairy producers lacking supply management’s stability. Hundreds of media accounts, mostly in the U.S. and European Union (EU), have been chronicling the lives of dairy farmers teetering on the brink of financial collapse since last spring. A sharp drop in world prices has dragged down the returns of American and European dairy producers to well below their costs of production. The upshot has been producer movements on both sides of the Atlantic for supply-management-type marketing systems that would rein in milk
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Milk Producer - October 2009