JANUARY 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


Dairy commits to healthier future Industry puts little blue cow out to pasture


by DAVID SCHMIDT


VANCOUVER – Dairy Farmers of Canada has developed a new brand conviction and is rolling out a new marketing logo to replace its little blue cow. The new conviction states, “We are Dairy Farmers of Canada and we believe in the power of dairy to give Canada a healthier future.”


“Everything we do flows out of that,” Ladysmith dairyman and DFC chair Wally Smith told the BC Dairy Conference in Vancouver, December 1, saying “healthier future” refers to consumers, dairy farmers and the Canadian economy.


He noted only 2% of Canadian consumers knew what the little blue cow meant as few processors were putting it on their products and fewer still were explaining its relevance. The new logo will be rolled out in early 2017 and its use should surpass the little blue cow. Agropur, which has 30% of all Canadian dairy sales, has already agreed to use the logo on its products and DFC hopes that will spur other processors to follow suit.


“Food labeling is always an issue and consumers need to know a product originates in Canada,” Smith said.


National ingredient strategy


Perhaps even more important to dairy farmers is the new national ingredient strategy. Smith hopes the Canadian Dairy Commission will approve the strategy in mid-December so it can be fully implemented in early 2017. Under the strategy, processors will be responsible for using up their skim milk powder instead of having the CDC buy it back. Ideally, processors will convert their solids-non-fat into milk protein concentrates (MPCs) and milk protein isolates (MPIs) instead of importing these ingredients. Since MPCs and MPIs will be priced at world prices, it will impact the blend price. “Until world prices increase, our blend price will not increase,” Smith told his fellow producers.


He expects the additional cheese imports allowed under the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Common Market to start coming into Canada as early as mid-2017 but said producers have had so much growth recently, they might not


even notice it. That growth is due to increased consumer preferences for whole milk and butter. In fact, Smith said he would not be surprised to see an end to 1% fluid milk sales. He expressed disappointment in the federal government’s five-year $250 million transition package to offset CETA’s impact on dairy, saying it falls “far short of what we were expecting and what we were promised. $100 million for the processing sector is chump change.”


Although details have yet to be released, Smith said it won’t be free money. “If you don’t put up some of your own money, you won’t get any federal money.”


Building trust


Both Smith and AdFarm founder Kim McConnell trumpeted DFC’s proAction Initiative as essential for maintaining trust in dairy farmers.


“Building public trust has become the defining issue for the Canadian food industry,” McConnell said, adding he expects “we better get used to” seeing more demonstrations and videos as PETA, Mercy for Animals and other activists target the livestock sector. While DFC is considered the number-one lobby group in Ottawa, he noted the Humane Society of the US is number four.


“You have to start telling your story,” McConnell told producers, urging them to concentrate on “where the people are:” Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and other big cities.


While 18 agriculture sectors are working on the issue, he says they are not working together.


“We need the different organizations and provinces to work together and government needs to support and robustly promote this,” McConnell said. “The new federal-provincial agricultural agreement needs to include funding for this.”


BC Minister of Agriculture Norm Letnick told producers he has passed on the BC Agriculture Council’s request for $5 million per year over the next three years to build public trust to the finance department as he recognizes its value. “Without that public trust, it makes it more difficult to maintain supply management,” he said.


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