Canada's dairy farmers saddened by revised TPP

While their counterparts in the pork and other agricultural and livestock sectors have welcomed the conclusion of the negotiations over the revised Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal last Tuesday, Canada's dairy sector has described it as a "somber day for the 221,000 Canadians that depend on the dairy sector for their livelihood".

The Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) had objected to the inclusion of the market access concessions originally agreed to in October 2015, when the US, the world's largest economy, was still a part of the deal.

DFC President Pierre Lampron said that while the Canadian government "has repeatedly stated that it wants a vibrant, strong and growing dairy sector that creates jobs and fosters investments,… it continues to carve out pieces of our domestic dairy market, first through CETA  and now through the CPTPP". CETA is the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU, while the CPTPP is the revised TPP, now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The DFC has claimed that the additional access from the concessions has cut into 3.25% of Canada's dairy market, or a little more than the annual milk production of Saskatchewan province, whose share of the national milk quota in 2016 was 3%.

"The Government must understand that in continuing to make these concessions, they are putting the Canadian dairy sector in jeopardy", Lampron said.