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

[Fake Boris]

How much of Quebec's effected industry is agri-business and how much small farmers?

The impression I get is that we are taxing ourselves to make business easier and more profitable mostly for a few corporations. I'd like to know if I have this wrong.

I think the difference between price at the farm and retail price is much smaller.

[Ben Kenobi]

Goddamn, I should be smuggling Cheese.

Amazing. Who would have thought this possible? A reunion of the Anglosphere. Now all we need to do is rope in the Kiwis and the folks from Oz.

[notyoueither]

I think the difference between price at the farm and retail price is much smaller.

I've read that retail milk is closer, but we pay through the nose for milk used by processors. People don't see how much the system is costing us as consumers.

A price from the farm that is double what it should be is going to be paid by someone along the way. Do you think food processors are eating it?

[notyoueither]

Exact comparisons are not easy, but...

1 lb butter in 2012.
US average $3.35
Can average $4.37

http://www.bls.gov/ro3/apmw.htm

http://www.livingin-canada.com/food-prices-canada.html

[Fake Boris]

If 30% is the price to protect rural areas, then so be it.

[The Mad Monk]

Protect rural areas from what?

[Fake Boris]

Depopulation and precarity.

I believe in the virtues of free trade between countries of similar development levels. Certain things should be excluded for the greater good: agriculture, culture, education, and valuable natural resources.

[notyoueither]

If 30% is the price to protect rural areas, then so be it.

My impression is that we are protecting the shareholders and owners of large agri-business.

It may have started out as helping small family farms, however the cost of entry is huge due to the quota system so slowly over time the quota ends up concentrated in the hands of what would be termed big business.

Who pays the largest share of income for food? The poor? You want to tax the poor to prop up big business?

[notyoueither]

Depopulation and precarity.

I believe in the virtues of free trade between countries of similar development levels. Certain things should be excluded for the greater good: agriculture, culture, education, and valuable natural resources.

This issue is about free trade even within our own country.

Even if an average Joe wanted to become a dairy farmer, his cost of entry is doubled by the need to buy quota before he can sell a drop.

http://www.iedm.org/fr/2547-sour-milk-system-canadas-dairy-quota-system-of-supply-management-ensures-that-canadians-will-pay-more-and-inefficiencies-wi

The establishment of quotas is equivalent to issuing rights to sell a certain quantity at administratively set prices. Milk quotas were initially distributed free of charge but later changed hands on centralized exchanges, becoming increasingly expensive. An average of more than $22,000 was required to make use of a cow and sell its milk in Canada in 2002. In 2003, according to Statistics Canada, quotas amounted to an average of nearly $1.1-million per dairy farm and a total of almost $17.6-billion for all dairy farming operations in Canada. This represents close to half the entire permanent long-term asset base of milk producers. To set up a dairy farm, almost as much would have to be spent on quotas as on the assets truly required for milk production, such as animals, land, buildings, farm machinery and equipment.

and then the system is not flexible for inter-provincial trade.

[giblets]

If 30% is the price to protect rural areas, then so be it.

Why do you want to protect rural areas? What makes them so special? I don't understand why you would want a select few benefiting from favoritism from the government.

[Fake Boris]

Stability is important in food supply, I believe.

[Wezil]

How do $20,000 cows provide that stability? Just try gaining access to that market.

Marketing boards hurt farmers and consumers.

Production is controlled by a quota system. Any farmer who wants to produce milk must have a quota. They were free in the early days of supply management but not any more. The price for one quota, essentially one dairy cow, has jumped from an average of $16,000 in the 1990s to more than $20,000 today. In some provinces a quota can cost more than $30,000. Considering that a typical dairy farmer has about 70 cows, that’s roughly $2-million worth of quotas. Critics say high quota prices make it impossible for new farmers to enter the business.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/global-food/canadians-dont-know-the-price-of-milk/article1809689/

[Fake Boris]

I understand.

The thing is that farming is highly volatile; you're better off with stable prices, even if they average higher. You know that despite these quotas, most dairy farmers are struggling?

Look at what happens to developing countries when the price of corn rises.

[Fake Boris]

$1.1-million per dairy farm and a total of almost $17.6-billion for all dairy farming operations in Canada.

What this suggests is that quotas have protected family farms... that would be an average of 60 cows per farm.

[Tupac Shakur]

I think Fake Boris may be a bigger ****** than Oerdin.