Comment by hervature
8 hours ago
> The alternative is as in the US, where anyone can produce milk, and the price craters, and farmers need to be constantly bailed out.
Do you have references to bailouts specifically for dairy farms? The big bailouts recently were due to reciprocal tariffs. There is the Milk Loss Program but that is limited to 30 days of production per year. I would also classify this more of an insurance program than bailout.
Examples:
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/23/nyregion/us-offers-dairym...
https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/1_2_overview_brow...
The PDF has some data showing how much post-market intervention costs.
It's particularly infuriating how US politicians will stated "we have a free market". whilst intervention happens, and then get upset that Canada does it differently.
Even more bizarre, is Canada has only 1/10th the population of the US. Both countries carve out exclusions, but the US side goes bananas that we don't have completely open markets on the agricultural side. So? We can both exclude each others markets, for agriculture, who cares?
With 1/10th of the population, if you manages to get 10% of the Canadian market, that's one hundredth of the whole US market. It's such a tiny amount.
Everyone here suspects the US just wants to drive all Canadian agriculture to bankruptcy, making us entirely dependent upon the US. No way. Not going to happen. That's madness.
In terms of market intervention, we can't afford to do it the way the US does. We don't have billions to buy up excess milk, or buy out farmers to reduce supply. It's immensely wasteful to the taxpayer.
Which is very strange, because it's often parties on the right in the US, which do buyouts.