Trans-Pacific Partnership offers dairy sector good news, bad news and a question mark

It certainly could have been worse for Canada's dairy sector. But in the final deal, it was possible to maintain Canada's supply management system and still join the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

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That doesn't mean, however, that important things won't change.

Providing Canada's TPP partners including the U.S., New Zealand and Australia with 3.25 per cent of Canada's annual dairy production will disturbthe previously still waters of the Canadian milk business.

Here's more about theupside, thedownside, and a pledgethat's not certain to be fulfilled.

Upside: Supply management stays

At one point, the cost of admission for Canada to join the TPP was thought to be dismantling the supply management system and its three pillars: price setting, production control and import control.

Now Canada has joined and those pillars still stand, even if their footing has shifted a little: the provincial marketing boardswill still be calling the ultimate shots on pricing and production levels, adjusting for the new imports required under the deal.

Upside: It's not 10per cent

Reports out of earlier stages of the negotiations had TPP partners like the U.S. asking for larger chunks of the Canadian industry to be opened up: perhaps as much as 10 per cent.

Seen in that light, the deal's 3.25 per cent isn't as much of a gamechanger.

"We obviously would have preferred that no additional market access be conceded in the dairy sector," said Wally Smith, the president of the Dairy Farmers of Canada in a press release reacting to the deal."However, we recognize that our government fought hard against other countries' demands."

If Canada had conceded much more than this, another wrinkle could have emerged: the cheese access offered to the European Union in its2013 free trade deal with Canada amounted to about two per cent. If a much bigger concessionwas put on the table at TPP, would the Europeans have wanted to reopen their deal and ask for more?

Upside: Most milkprocessed domestically

Opening the border to any amount of fluid milk is something new for the dairy industry: previous changes under the Uruguay Round and the EU deal had introduced small levels of cheese, butter and other imports, but jugs of foreign milk were not heading to Canadian grocery store shelves.

Raw milk will not move across the border in this deal.The fluid milk import agreement under TPP requires85 per cent of imports to be processed at facilities in Canada. That shieldsdomestic dairies from more significant drops in their processing volumes, which could have compromised the economies of scale they needto compete.

And a new $450-million processor modernization fund is intended to encourage capital investments and other capacity improvements in not just the dairy but the poultry industries as well.

Upside: Export potential

After the EU deal was signed, the Harper government tried to encourage the dairy industry to see export opportunities now available to them, likeselling their calves asvealexports or developing specialty cheese that might find new markets across the Atlantic.

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The TPP deal also nudges the dairy industry to look beyond its borders to balance potential losses from new imports. Specifically, Canadian artisanal cheese makers interested in developing American markets will see their tariffs eased.

Upside: Canadian milk still hormone-free

Some consumers fearAmerican milk imports because U.S.dairy producers are governed by different regulatory rules when it comes to raising their livestock. In particular, acontroversial bovine growth hormone(referred to asrBSTorrBGH) isapproved for use in American cattle, but not Canadian herds. (Health Canada has a fact sheet on this.)

The U.S.takes the position that these hormonesare safe, including for consumers who drink the milk.

At the Oct. 5briefing, officials suggestedCanadian drug and phytosanitary regulationswould apply to dairy importsunder the TPP.

But the following week, the trade department clarified that therehas never been a restriction in Canada on the import or sale of milk, or products containing milk ingredients, that come from cows treated with the rBST growth hormone.

"Health Canada found no evidence of adverse health effects in humans from the consumption of these products," a spokesman wrote.

Consumers who wish to avoid hormone exposure can continue to consume only Canadian dairy products. But there is no labelling requirement for the original of milk ingredients in processed food sold in Canada.

It's unclear whether Canada's different drug rules could be challenged down the road as a non-tariff barrier.

Downside: Uncertainquota values?

While some Canadian producers inherited their quota at low or no cost, others have financed their quota at considerableexpense through financial institutions.

Ed Fast says that supply management has been protected

9 years ago

Duration 3:05

Ed Fast, Canada's Minister of International Trade, responds to questions about the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal that was completed today

Until now,producers could count on relatively stable quota values. But it'sunclear what happens now.

Unless domestic consumption significantly increases, Canada's marketing boardsmay have to scale back domestic productionto maintain prices.Over time, some quota may need to be retired.

• Supply management in Canada: Why politicians defend farm marketing boards

If the value of dairy quota, currently set at around $25,000 per milking cow, declines and producers incur losses from sellingquota after the implementation of TPP, $1.5 billion over 10 years has been set aside to compensate producers.

Downside: Farming the mailbox

Although frequently criticized, supply-managed agricultural sectors did have abig point of prideon their side.

Unlike other export-driven commodities which needemergency bailouts and otherincome support programs to deal withroller-coaster world commodity markets dairy producers did not cost taxpayersin the form of subsidies. The prices the milk marketing boards set paid them what they needed to make aliving.

Some optimism on dairy

9 years ago

Duration 5:12

Wally Smith, president of the Dairy Farmers of Canada, on supply management and the TPP

Monday's announcement ends that talking point,introducinga $2.4-billion, 15-year (initially) income support programto cover losses incurred after the TPP comes into force. (Italso covers losses resulting fromthe new European imports.)

Taxpayers subsidizedairy farmers in other competitorcountries.Now Canadian taxpayers will subsidize their dairy farmerstoo.

Unknown: Will grocery prices go down?

For consumers of dairy products, Stephen Harper's Conservatives have suggestedprices willfall. Really?

To get an apples-to-apples comparison of drinking milk prices, you have to compare the average cost of a four-litre bag in Canada to a gallon jug in the U.S. (the ways most people buy milk four litres is roughly 1.05 gallons.) In this kind of comparison, the cost differential is about 10 per cent between Canada and the U.S.

This relative price difference has to be seen in the greater context of Canada's retail price competitiveness, where goods in Canada are sometimes far more than 10 per cent more expensive than in the U.S. Transportation logistics, economies of scale, labour costs and other policy differences all play a role in the Canada-U.S. price gap.

Candidates respond to TPP deal

9 years ago

Duration 11:23

Candidates Ralph Goodale and Peggy Nash discuss their parties' positions on the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Will new imports help ease Canadianpricescloser to parity?

To some extent, that's out of the hands ofgovernmentand the farmers.

When Canadian beeffarmerstook a bath after the BSE-related border closures since 2003, retailprices didn't always drop to the same extent. Margins expanded elsewhere.

Time will tell whether any lower costs nowwill be passed on fully to consumers.