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A dairy farmer’s prospective on NAFTA talks

Dear Editor, I’ve been a dairy farmer near Barrhead for 41 years. I farm here with my wife, daughter and son-in-law. I’d like to weigh into the debate on supply management, as it’s important in our agricultural community.

Dear Editor,

I’ve been a dairy farmer near Barrhead for 41 years. I farm here with my wife, daughter and son-in-law. I’d like to weigh into 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 that we don’t heavily export milk, so your glass of milk is from local farms like mine. That milk will not be cheaper if we don’t have supply management. In fact, according to A.C. Nelson, milk is cheaper in Canada than the USA.

Under NAFTA, Americans want access to our market because they have a serious milk over supply problem. However, the state of Wisconsin produces more milk than all of Canada, so it wouldn’t take long before they would just fill up Canada too. I have quota to produce milk, so this over-supply 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).

Canada also has higher quality milk compared to American milk. Why would we want a lesser quality product? Added hormones are completely illegal in my cows.

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 is something we should all be patriotic about and will affect our community if we get bullied in NAFTA.

Thank you,

Lorrie Jespersen

Barrhead

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