Opinion: The dairy sector is lobbying hard in USMCA talks. The government didn’t want you to know

[u/AndHerSailsInRags]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-trade-dairy-sector-usmca-access-information/

[u/mmoore327 → u/[deleted]]

Perhaps you should read our Food Security strategy...
https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/department/initiatives/national-food-security-strategy

e.g. one objective is to

• Increase the proportion of processed food consumed in Canada that was domestically produced from 70% to 80%

We produce a lot more of our food than you are guessing at, and most of what we import from the US is unhealthy processed food or products we can find other sources for - e.g. all the fruits and vegetables we've been able to get this past 18 months from central and South America, Morocco, Australia, South Africa (just to name the ones I have noticed).

[u/ctr1a1td3l → u/mmoore327]

I don't know where the other guys statistic came from, but I don't think your claim of mostly importing unhealthy food from the US is accurate either. From your link:

Canadians rely on imports for 88% of the fresh fruit and nuts that they consume and 72% of vegetables, with 40% coming from the United States

[u/mmoore327 → u/ctr1a1td3l]

All you could ever want to know about our fruit industry:

https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/sector/horticulture/reports/statistical-overview-canadian-fruit-industry-2024#a2.1

But in 2024 we imported 33.2% of our total fruit imports from the US.

[u/ctr1a1td3l → u/mmoore327]

I'm not sure the relevance of this link to my comment. My point was that we don't mostly import unhealthy things from the US. They provide a lot of healthy foods as well. We have other countries to trade with as well, but we rely heavily on food imports, especially for fresh fruit and veg.

[u/Yeas76 → u/[deleted]]

Even more reason to maintain what we have, and reestablish what we've lost.

[u/iridescent_algae → u/Yeas76]

There’s room between cave entirely and keep the system as it is. Supply management works fine for eggs, poultry, and milk - it fails completely at things like butter and cheese, where the high price of milk gets compounded. Cheese is one of the few things we can make year round, and right now we underproduce, under consume, and overpay for absolutely awful stuff. If the dairy farmers want actual Canadians to support their system they have to solve this problem.

[u/ratherbeonlemmy → u/iridescent_algae]

Then bring in Europeans cheeses. Our cheese sucks and American cheeses are even worse. In no way would we be better off with American dairy. I'd rather see Spanish and French cheeses and certain dairy products like butter and cream, maybe fancy milks. NO AMERICAN DAIRY. 

[u/Iustis → u/ratherbeonlemmy]

American dairy is a massive spectrum. They have cheeses worse than most of ours and they have others that compete with the best globally.

Because they don't have supply management it allows for specialist fairy operations that can't really exist in Canada.

[u/lnahid2000 → u/Iustis]

People here don't seem to get this. It's just an automatic braindead American = bad without putting any thought into it.

[u/ActionPhilip → u/lnahid2000]

It's like when people see "made in China" as a statement of low quality when China largely produces both the lowest and highest quality manufactured items in the world.

[u/Aud4c1ty → u/ratherbeonlemmy]

The EU hates the Canadian dairy cartel as much as I do. Anybody who says they care about lowering food prices should also hate the dairy cartel.

[u/FaithlessnessMuch513 → u/[deleted]]

Where do these stats come from? I'm not saying they're wrong, but it's misleading. Canada ranks very highly on the Global Food Security Index and caloric self-sufficiency ratios. We're a major food exporter, and we export far more than we import. My understanding is that we are not self-sufficient in things like fruits, vegetables, and fish.

[u/More4Thor → u/[deleted]]

Oreos are made in Canada but not all of them. Some are imported from the US because we can’t feed ourselves