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Agriculture

Dairy Farmers Need To Wake Up Before The System Crumbles

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Dr. Sylvain Charlebois

Without reform, Canada risks losing nearly half of its dairy farms by 2030, according to experts

Few topics in Canadian agriculture generate as much debate as supply management in the dairy sector. The issue gained renewed attention when former U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Canada’s protectionist stance during NAFTA renegotiations, underscoring the need to reassess the system’s long-term viability.

While proponents argue that supply management ensures financial stability for farmers and shields them from global market volatility, critics contend that it inflates consumer prices, limits competition, and stifles innovation. A policy assessment titled Supply Management 2.0: A Policy Assessment and a Possible Roadmap for the Canadian Dairy Sector, conducted by researchers at Dalhousie University and the University of Guelph, sheds light on the system’s inefficiencies and presents a compelling case for reform.

Designed in the 1970s to regulate production and stabilize dairy prices, Canada’s supply management system operates through strict production quotas and high import tariffs. However, as successive trade agreements such as the USMCA, CETA, and CPTPP erode these protections, the system appears increasingly fragile. The federal government’s $3-billion compensation package to dairy farmers for hypothetical trade losses is a clear indication that the current structure is unsustainable.

Instead of fostering resilience, supply management has created an industry that is increasingly dependent on government payouts rather than market-driven efficiencies. If current trends persist, Canada could lose nearly half of its dairy farms by 2030 — regardless of who is in the White House.

Consumer sentiment is also shifting. Younger generations are questioning the sustainability and transparency of the dairy industry, particularly in light of scandals such as ButterGate, where palm oil supplements were used in cow feed to alter butterfat content, making butter harder at room temperature. Additionally, undisclosed milk dumping of anywhere between 600 million to 1 billion litres annually has further eroded public trust. These factors indicate that the industry is failing to align with evolving consumer expectations.

One of the most alarming findings in the policy assessment is the extent of overcapitalization in the dairy sector. Government compensation payments, coupled with rigid production quotas, have encouraged inefficiency rather than fostering innovation. Unlike their counterparts in Australia and the European Union — where deregulation has driven productivity gains — Canadian dairy farmers remain insulated from competitive pressures that could otherwise drive modernization.

The policy assessment also highlights a growing geographic imbalance in dairy production. Over 74% of Canada’s dairy farms are concentrated in Quebec and Ontario, despite only 61% of the national population residing in these provinces. This concentration exacerbates supply chain inefficiencies and increases price disparities. As a result, consumers in Atlantic Canada, the North, and Indigenous communities face disproportionately high dairy costs, raising serious food security concerns. Addressing these imbalances requires policies that promote regional diversification in dairy production.

A key element of modernization must involve a gradual reform of production quotas and tariffs. The existing quota system restricts farmers’ ability to respond dynamically to market signals. While quota allocation is managed provincially, harmonizing the system at the federal level would create a more cohesive market. Moving toward a flexible quota model, with expansion mechanisms based on demand, would increase competitiveness and efficiency.

Tariff policies also warrant reassessment. While tariffs provide necessary protection for domestic producers, they currently contribute to artificially inflated consumer prices. A phased reduction in tariffs, complemented by direct incentives for farmers investing in productivity-enhancing innovations and sustainability initiatives, could strike a balance between maintaining food sovereignty and fostering competitiveness.

Despite calls for reform, inertia persists due to entrenched interests within the sector. However, resistance is not a viable long-term strategy. Industrial milk prices in Canada are now the highest in the Western world, making the sector increasingly uncompetitive on a global scale. While supply management also governs poultry and eggs, these industries have adapted more effectively, remaining competitive through efficiency improvements and innovation. In contrast, the dairy sector continues to grapple with structural inefficiencies and a lack of modernization.

That said, abolishing supply management outright is neither desirable nor practical. A sudden removal of protections would expose Canadian dairy farmers to aggressive foreign competition, risking rural economic stability and jeopardizing domestic food security. Instead, a balanced approach is needed — one that preserves the core benefits of supply management while integrating market-driven reforms to ensure the industry remains competitive, innovative and sustainable.

Canada’s supply management system, once a pillar of stability, has become an impediment to progress. As global trade dynamics shift and consumer expectations evolve, policymakers have an opportunity to modernize the system in a way that balances fair pricing with market efficiency. The recommendations from Supply Management 2.0 suggest that regional diversification of dairy production, value-chain-based pricing models that align production with actual market demand, and a stronger emphasis on research and development could help modernize the industry. Performance-based government compensation, rather than blanket payouts that preserve inefficiencies, would also improve long-term sustainability.

The question is no longer whether reform is necessary, but whether the dairy industry and policymakers are prepared to embrace it. A smarter, more flexible supply management framework will be crucial in ensuring that Canadian dairy remains resilient, competitive, and sustainable for future generations.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.

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Agriculture

How USAID Assisted the Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture

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From the Brownstone Institute

By john-klarJohn Klar  

A recent essay titled “The Real Purpose of Net Zero” by Jefferey Jaxon posited that Europe’s current war against farmers in the name of preventing climate change is ultimately designed to inflict famine. Jaxon is not speculating on globalist motives; he is warning humanity of a rapidly unfolding reality that is observable in the perverse lies against cows, denigration of European farmers as enemies of the Earth, and calls by the WHO, WEF, and UN for a plant-based diet dependent entirely on GMOs, synthetic fertilizers, and agrichemicals.

Revelations about the evil doings of the Orwellian-monikered “United States Agency of International Development” (USAID) reveal a roadmap to totalitarian control unwittingly funded by America’s taxpaying proles. USAID’s clandestine machinations have long focused on controlling local and global food supplies as “soft colonization” by multinational chemical, agricultural, and financial corporations. European farmers revolting against climate, wildlife, and animal rights policies are harbingers of this tightening globalist noose.

The roots of the current globalist plan to “save humanity from climate change” link directly to the infamous Kissinger Report, which called to control world food supplies and agriculture as part of a globalist collaboration between nation-states and NGOs to advance US national security interests and “save the world” from human overpopulation using “fertility reduction technologies.” Kissinger’s 1974 Report was created by USAID, the CIA, and various federal agencies, including the USDA.

Fast forward to 2003, the Iraq War justified using fear-mongering propaganda about weapons of mass destruction and neo-conservative malarky about rescuing the Iraqi people. The US-led occupation of Iraq became a rapacious profiteering smorgasbord for colonizing corporations husbanded by USAID. Iraq is heir to the birthplace of human civilization, made possible by early Mesopotamian agriculture: many of the grains, fruits, and vegetables that now feed the world were developed there. Iraq’s farmers saved back 97% of their seed stocks from their own harvests before the US invasion. Under Paul Bremer, Rule 81 (never fully implemented) sought to institute GMO cropping and patented seed varieties, as Cargill, Monsanto, and other corporations descended upon the war-ravaged nation using American tax dollars and USAID.

That playbook was more quietly implemented during the Ukraine War, once again orchestrated by USAID. Before the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Ukraine was the breadbasket of Europe, prohibiting GMO technologies and restricting land ownership to Ukrainians. Within months of US intervention, USAID assisted in the dismantling of these protections in the name of “land reforms,” free markets, financial support, improved agricultural efficiency, and rescuing the Ukrainian people. In just two years, over half of Ukraine’s farmland became the property of foreign investors. GMO seeds and drone technology were “donated” by Bayer Corporation, and companies such as GMO seed-seller Syngenta and German chemical manufacturer BASF became the dominant agricultural “stakeholders” in war-torn Ukraine. Russia may withdraw, but Ukraine’s foreign debts, soil degradation, and soft colonization will remain.

The UN, WTO, WHO, and WEF all conspire to peddle a false narrative that cows and peasant farmers are destroying the planet, and that chemical-dependent GMO monocropping, synthetic fertilizers, and patented fake meats and bug burgers must be implemented post haste (by force if necessary) to rescue humanity. The argument that pesticides and synthetic fertilizers (manufactured from natural gas, aka methane) are salvific is patently false. They are, however, highly profitable for chemical companies like Bayer, Dow, and BASF.

Jefferey Jaxon is exactly correct. The Netherlands committed to robust agricultural development following a Nazi embargo that deliberately inflicted mass famine following their collaboration with Allied Forces in Operation Market Garden. France boasts the highest cow population in all of Europe. Ireland’s culture is tightly linked to farming as part of its trauma during the (British-assisted) Irish Potato Famine. The corporate/NGO cabal now uprooting and targeting farmers in these nations and across the EU in the name of staving off climate change and preserving wildlife is a direct outcropping of Kissinger’s grand dystopian scheme launched through USAID in 1974.

Americans watch European farmer protests from afar, largely oblivious that most all of US agriculture was absorbed by the Big Ag Borg generations ago. Currency control linked to a (political, environmental, and economic) social credit scorecard promises the fruition of Kissinger’s demonic plan: “Control the food, control the people.”

Modern humans suffer a double hubris that blinds them to the contemplation of the truth of Jaxon’s hypothesis: a cultish trust in technology, coupled with an irrational faith in their self-perceived moral superiority to past civilizations (Wendell Berry calls this “historical pride”). Yet, as long as mankind has had the capacity to harm another for personal gain, humans have devised ways to control food for power or profit. Siege warfare generally depended on starving defenders of castle walls into submission.

Even if globalist food control proposals are well-intentioned, a monolithic, monocultured, industrial-dependent worldwide food system is a lurking humanitarian disaster. Berry observed:

In a highly centralized and industrialized food-supply system there can be no small disaster. Whether it be a production “error” or a corn blight, the disaster is not foreseen until it exists; it is not recognized until it is widespread.

The current push to dominate global food production using industrial systems is the cornerstone of complete globalist dominion over all of humanity. The “Mark of the Beast” without which no American will buy or sell goods – including guns, bullets, or factory-grown hamburgers and cricket patties – is mere steps away. Mr. Jaxon is correct that these leaders “know these basic historical and current facts,” and that “[f]armers are becoming endangered because of government [climate] policy … and it’s being allowed to happen.” USAID has been actively seeding and watering this dystopia for decades.

Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates are as fully cognizant of this fundamental truth as Henry Kissinger was in 1974. USAID has aided all three. Having lost almost all of their small farms over the last century, Americans are well ahead of Europeans in their near-complete dependence on industrial food.

That’s the plan.

Author

  • john-klar

    John Klar is an attorney, farmer, food rights activist, and author from Vermont. John is a staff writer for Liberty Nation News and Door to Freedom. His substack is Small Farm Republic.

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Agriculture

The Role of Satellite Imagery in Developing VRA Prescription Maps

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Since its appearance in the 1980s, precision agriculture has revolutionized farming, offering innovative solutions to age-old challenges. One of those is Variable rate technology (VRT), which plays a key role in improving efficiency and sustainability in today’s farming methods.

By applying inputs like fertilizers and water in different quantities across the field, VRT helps optimize crop yields and reduce costs. This technology relies on data collection and analysis to create detailed VRA prescription maps, allowing for customized input applications. 

With the right equipment and technology, VRT can significantly improve agricultural productivity.  Today’s advanced tractors, equipped with built-in terminals and specialized software integrated with a precision agriculture platform, use prescription maps to accurately apply variable rates of water or chemicals based on GPS location and management zones.

Variable Rate Technology In Precision Agriculture

Precision agriculture is a game-changer, moving far beyond traditional farming methods. Often called satellite farming, this approach focuses on crop condition monitoring, measuring, and responding to variability within fields. One of its standout innovations is variable rate application (VRA), which has caught the attention of farmers worldwide for its immense potential.

Why is VRA so important? It goes beyond simply fertilizing, seeding, and applying pesticides. It’s about utilizing technology to apply various expendable materials on and beneath the field automatically. 

Farm management software simplifies contemporary farming by combining data and technology to improve farming efficiency, sustainability, and profitability. Precision agriculture platforms consolidate operations, crop health monitoring through satellite imagery, and offer real-time suggestions, enabling farmers to make informed decisions for the best use of resources (through VRA) and increased productivity.

Variable rate application offers numerous advantages for modern agriculture:

  1. VR fertilizer enhances farming efficiency.

Adjusting rates based on soil health and plant needs helps save resources and increase yields. Research shows this method can lead to higher net income and healthier soil compared to using uniform rates: “The net incomes of VR management zone were 15.5–449.61 USD ha−1 higher than that of traditional spatially uniform rate fertilization.”

  1. VR irrigation saves water, time, and fuel while reducing machinery wear.

Applying the correct amount of water to different parts of the field based on soil moisture levels and crop requirements reduces wear and tear on irrigation equipment compared to uniform irrigation.

Studies claim: “Variable rate irrigation (VRI) can increase water use efficiency and productivity by applying water based on site‐specific needs.”

  1. VR seeding increases crop yield by adjusting seeding rates based on soil fertility.

VR seeding adjusts seeding rates based on soil fertility and other factors to optimize plant populations and yields. It is commonly used alongside variable rate fertilization as part of a comprehensive precision agriculture strategy. 

Findings show that: “The application of VRS to the seeding of various crops shows positive agro-economic trends, additional yields, and higher economic returns.”

  1. VR pesticide reduces environmental pollution and improves pesticide efficiency.

VRT helps farmers target pests more accurately and use less pesticide. 

Studies have found that “VR management zone reduced the use of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) fertilizers by 22.90–43.95%, 59.11–100%, and 8.21–100%, respectively, and it also increased the use efficiency of N, P, and K by 12.27–28.71, 89.64–176.85, and 5.48–266.89 kg/kg, respectively, without yield loss.”

This demonstrates the ability of variable rate technologies to improve pesticide effectiveness and reduce environmental pollution in agriculture.

Using Various Technological Means For Informed Decisions

Applying different technological tools is essential for implementing variable rate technology in agriculture. This includes smart machinery, fertilizers, seeders, soil sensors, geographic information system (also called GIS), and the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) applications for field mapping. Additionally, having supporting infrastructure, which helps manage and analyze info from different sources, is crucial for successful implementation.

Understanding the location, timing, and methods for seeding, fertilizing, and harvesting is key in remote crop monitoring and precision agriculture, where data plays a vital role in managing resources effectively.

This information is taken from a wide variety of data sources.

  • Sensors. Moisture, soil nutrients, compaction, weather stations (humidity, temperature, wind speed)
  • Drones and satellite photography. Field hyperspectral imaging.
  • GNSS. Event coordinates, also points and times for obtaining time-series data
  • Spatio-temporal data sources. Spatio-temporal specific data (trajectories of agricultural machinery, spatiotemporal points, event points, time-series information)
  • Maps. Field boundaries, soil type, surface levels)
  • AI solutions. Prediction of weather conditions, detection of plant diseases.

However, simply collecting raw data is not sufficient. It is necessary to process this information to extract valuable insights, make informed decisions, and enable automatic alerts and control signals for agricultural equipment. Thus, you must have the capability to:

  • Gather data;
  • Transform the data to extract valuable insights for precision farming gear;
  • Upload the data into agricultural equipment;
  • Retrieve real-time data from tractors, seeders, fertilizers, and other machinery.

By following these steps, farmers can make the most of modern technology, optimizing their farming practices and boosting efficiency.

Use Of Satellite Images In Building VRT Maps

Satellite crop monitoring imagery can be used to generate different kinds of VRA maps for various purposes. As nitrogen is one of the most critical elements plants need, building map for its proper application is a major task. 

Nitrogen fertilization maps play a crucial role in optimizing the application of water, nitrogen, and crop protection products. 

When creating a VRA map for nitrogen fertilizer, you can choose from various indices that provide valuable insights:

  • MSAVI is sensitive to uncovered soil and, therefore, is ideal for planning VR fertilizer application in the early stages of growth.

Example:  Early in the growing season, a corn farmer uses MSAVI to detect patches of uncovered soil in their field. This helps them apply fertilizer more accurately, ensuring that nutrient-rich areas receive the right amount of input and promoting uniform growth.

  • ReCI measures chlorophyll content in leaves, helping to identify field areas with faded and yellowed vegetation that may need additional fertilizer.

Example: A soybean grower notices using ReCI that certain sections of their field have yellowed leaves, indicating possible nutrient deficiencies. They apply additional fertilizer to these areas, restoring plant health and boosting overall yield.

  • NDVI indicates biomass accumulation zones and areas with low vegetation that might demand larger amounts of fertilizer.

Example:  A cotton producer uses NDVI to map out zones with varying levels of biomass across their field. They adjust their fertilizer application rates, applying more in areas with lower vegetation to support growth and maximize their harvest.

  • NDMI is well-suited for VR irrigation by identifying areas that are under water stress.

Example: During a hot summer, a vineyard uses NDMI to pinpoint areas suffering from water stress. They adjust their irrigation system to provide extra water where it’s needed, ensuring the vines remain healthy and productive.

    • NDRE helps identify stressed or dying vegetation in the middle to late stages of a season, aiding in effective fertilization strategies.
  • Example: During the season, a wheat farmer uses NDRE to identify patches of the field where the wheat plants are showing signs of nutrient stress or poor growth. By applying a mid-season nutrient boost specifically to these stressed areas, the farmer improves the overall health and yield potential of the wheat crop.

Field Productivity Maps

Field productivity maps can be created by analyzing satellite images to pinpoint areas with high or low crop yields. By using the NDVI index and advanced machine learning algorithms, different productivity zones can be identified.

Key applications of productivity maps include:

  • Potassium and phosphorus fertilization

Historical productivity zones data can help avoid excessive application in areas where these nutrients may have accumulated with time.

  • Variable rate planting

Farmers can apply different seed amounts in various productivity zones to either maximize yield or achieve uniform distribution across the field.

  • Land evaluation

Field productivity can be assessed before purchasing or renting land; it helps reduce risk and enhance profitability.

  • Targeted soil sampling

Soil sampling efforts can be focused on key areas indicated by productivity data, rather than relying on generic grid sampling.

As you see, variable rate application (VRA) is a cost-effective method that can save you 10% on planting and cultivation costs based on the characteristics of the soil. To fully benefit from VRA, it’s important to understand the technologies involved, such as sensors, GNSS, earth observation pictures from drones and satellites, and digital maps, which provide crucial data for analysis and implementation. We sincerely hope that you succeed in your farming endeavors with modern technology!

______________

Author Vasyl Cherlinka

Vasyl Cherlinka is a Doctor of Biosciences specializing in pedology (soil science), with 30 years of experience in the field. With a degree in agrochemistry, agronomy and soil science, Dr. Cherlinka has been advising on these issues private sector for many years.

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