Dear Editor, I’ve been a dairy farmer in the Bowden area for 19 years. I farm here with my husband and three children. I’d like to express some of my thoughts about the debate on supply management as it’s important in our agricultural community. Supply management is how we keep our milk local. It simply means we don’t heavily export milk, so your glass of milk is from local farms, like mine. That perishable milk will not be cheaper if we don’t have supply management. In fact, according to A.C. Neilson, milk is cheaper in Canada than the BST-free milk in the United States. BST, an artificial growth hormone, is completely illegal in my cows. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Americans want access to our market because they have a serious milk oversupply problem. However, the state of Wisconsin produces more milk than all of Canada, and it wouldn’t take long before they would fill up Canada, too. I have quota to produce milk, so this oversupply and waste doesn’t happen in Canada. We’re also self-sufficient, so we don’t get a dime in subsidies from the government (unlike every single other dairy market in the world). On top of this, we allow the United States to export 10 per cent of its milk tariff-free to Canada. In comparison, Canada only exports three per cent to the United States. I support agriculture commodities that rely on exporting. It’s possible to defend the interests of all different types of farmers that exist in our community. Supply management for perishable products is something we should all be patriotic about and will affect our community if we get bullied in NAFTA. Miranda Verhoef Bowden
