Canada-Europe free trade agreement could be final in 6 months

[regexcellent]

I have a friend from Trois-Rivières and as far as I can tell he eats most of the same sorts of things I do.

[Ben Kenobi]

Most cow farms close (and unlike Obi Wan's opinion that it's better to work minimum wage and pay 30% less for cheese than to own your farm, no it isn't)

I know dairy farmers both in the lower mainland and around PG. Please. They do very well for themselves. Sure, they get less for their cheese, but they still do very well.

Why would they close? Dairy farms in Quebec would close, if they were not subsidized by Western Canada.

Are replaced by large exploitations or imports

BC alone could replace the entire output of Quebec and then some. Plenty of room here for dairy farming.

diversity of taste

If there's a market for 'made in Quebec' cheese, then the market will supply whatever demand there is for it. Some people are willing to pay a premium for local supply.

I worked in a health food store, Oncle Boris. It's not clear to me that opening it to true competition would result in a shortage of the cheese that you like. Quite the opposite. If there's a demand for it, someone will make it.

[Fake Boris]

Interprovincial trade is the result of well, an interprovincial agreement.

If you don't like the system, petition your government not to respect Quebec's quota. It's your decision.

Besides, I do think that BC is not part of the agreement with Quebec.

[notyoueither]

They closed.

And define "healthy".

I think it is time for you to begin supporting your assertions.

I have already provided material that shows a 70% decline in the number of dairy farms between 1980 and 2004, a period of consolidation with supply management in full effect.

Healthy is not an industry which is driving out producers and preventing new entrants due to artificially high costs of entry.

[Fake Boris]

You're begging the question.

No I'm not. I'm calling rural disenfranchisement an externality of optimal produce pricing.
You refuse to recognize this externality, because you believe that humanity is better off adapting to prices, moving. In the same way that proper utility measurements must include a "minimum utility per person", I think a "minimum utility per community" also makes sense.

Large corporations that transform milk suffer very little from price variations; producers take all the shots, and should get some help.

You will never agree with me over this, I know.

If people actually want to buy some type of milk or cheese then I'm sure someone will sell it to them.

And I'm sure that if people want to buy fries made of non-hydrogenated oil, someone will sell it to them. Until of course the truth emerges from 30 years of FDA/food chemistry departments bribery!

Seriously, go to the damn grocery store sometime. Do you really think we're suffering from some crippling lack of product diversity caused by capitalism? My grocery store has a ridiculous number of different types of cheese and dairy.

There is no lack of transformed product diversity, but there is a clear lack of brute resource diversity. Read more on agriculture.

And why would quality decline? Again, the grocery store I go to has plenty of different qualities of milk available for purchase. Lower-quality milk is cheaper, higher-quality is expensive. Same in eggs, butter, cheese, in EVERYTHING.

Better products are available in Quebec too; we're just keeping a minimum quality level for large scale supply.

So, in order to prevent big corporations from lobbying the government for preferential treatment and government handouts, we should give preferential treatment and government handouts to small farmers?

Milk is not directly subsidized in Quebec. The "handout" is the quota.

And yes indeed, I suspect in this case that the division of benefits into a high number of smaller actors preserves a check of power.

[regexcellent]

And I'm sure that if people want to buy fries made of non-hydrogenated oil, someone will sell it to them. Until of course the truth emerges from 30 years of FDA/food chemistry departments bribery!

I buy them all the time at Five Guys.

[Fake Boris]

I think it is time for you to begin supporting your assertions.

I have already provided material that shows a 70% decline in the number of dairy farms between 1980 and 2004, a period of consolidation with supply management in full effect.

Healthy is not an industry which is driving out producers and preventing new entrants due to artificially high costs of entry.

What you didn't mention is that the production per cow rose extremely quickly, so much that farmers had to buy quotas to keep up; a lot simply decided to sell to their neighbor.

The movement was mostly a movement of consolidation between small farmers; we have less farms, but near all of them are still at the family scale.

[Ben Kenobi]

Besides, I do think that BC is not part of the agreement with Quebec.

Strictly quota controlled.

[Hauldren Collider]

You know, Boris, if you aren't happy with the food restaurants serve you, it's entirely possible to get the ingredients to make food yourself. My mom does it all the time. The results are pretty amazing.

[Ben Kenobi]

The movement was mostly a movement of consolidation between small farmers; we have less farms, but near all of them are still at the family scale.

So, IOW, the status quo is producing the effect that you railed against, consolidating the dairy industry, and killing small farmers. Funny that! One would think that by reducing competition you'd be helping, not hurting the big players.

[Fake Boris]

You know, Boris, if you aren't happy with the food restaurants serve you, it's entirely possible to get the ingredients to make food yourself. My mom does it all the time. The results are pretty amazing.

WTF are you trying to say.

Hydrogenated oil is poison.

The truth was stifled for a very long time before the knowledge became a public issue. It shouldn't have taken that long.

[regexcellent]

If it's poison then I really ought to be dead by now.

[Fake Boris]

So, IOW, the status quo is producing the effect that you railed against, consolidating the dairy industry, and killing small farmers. Funny that! One would think that by reducing competition you'd be helping, not hurting the big players.

If by "killing farmers" you mean "sell your 30 cow farms at a profit and consolidate the industry in 70 cow farms" then so be it.

[Ben Kenobi]

If by "killing farmers" you mean "sell your 30 cow farms at a profit and consolidate the industry in 70 cow farms" then so be it.

If 'consolidation' were an evil, why are you satisfied with the consolidation of the dairy industry under the status quo?

[Fake Boris]

If 'consolidation' were an evil, why are you satisfied with the consolidation of the dairy industry under the status quo?

I clearly meant "consolidation" as "turn small owners into employees of vast domains", not "turn working class people into comfortable middle".