The Rural Voice, 1981-11, Page 7cents per hectolitre for all milk shipped in
the month in which there is a second and
third detection of grade two or three
bacteria counts in any three-month
period. Previously that was thirty-five
cents per hectolitre and the time period
was five months. Subsequent detection of
grade two or three calls for the doubling of
the monetary penalty. The first discovery
of grade two or three in any three-month
period is not subject to penalty.
Stage three came into effect September
1, 1981, and now all producers must meet
Grade A standards for milk quality and
farm premises.
Besides passing the plate loop test
(bacteria count), Grade A niillk must be
sweet and clean, free from objectionable
flavour or odour, free from adulteration
and come from healthy cows.
In the area of farm premises, OMAF has
a list of five standards that deal with dairy
farm buildings in general and a list of
thirty more that cover milk houses.
Since September 1, ministry field
personnel have been making follow-up
visits to farms that were not officially
scored Grade A by August 31.
Those producers are subject to a penalty
of S2 per hectolitre on all milk marketed
during the first thirty days after the Grade
A rating is removed. After thirty days the
penalty will be increased to S4 per hl.
After sixty days that penalty becomes S8.
per hl. When a Grade A rating has been
removed for ninety consecutive days the
milk from that farm will be excluded from
all markets. In the business, that is called
a shut-off.
A producer who incurs one or two
quality penalties in a twelve-month period
is docked sixty cents per hectolitre on all
milk marketed during those months. For
Please turn to page lb
Quota value:
BY ADRIAN VOS
When the Economic Council of Canada
(E.C.C.) made the results of its studies on
marketing boards known, a predictable
howl of indignation went up from the
farming community.
OFA President Ralph Barrie, himself a
dairy producer, quickly went into action to
denounce the study as ill-founded and
ill -researched and having drawn all the
wrong conclusions.
It became obvious from the report, that
the authors were biased against the
philosophy of regulations in the
agricultural industry.
However, biased as they may have
been. they are not stupid people. and to
condemn all their criticism in a blanket
manner, is just emulating the academics.
To find out a bit more about the thinking
on quota values, which was the biggest
critique by the ECC, Rural Voice asked
some bankers and some dairy producers
about their thoughts on quotas.
As can be expected, the bankers were
careful not to appear biased in favour or
against supply management.
The Bank of Montreal's Les Frayne,
regional agrologist for Western Ontario,
looks at quotas from two different points of
view. Cost of all inputs have gone up
dramatically and supply management
helps to off -set the attendant hardships to
a great degree. But, he finds, there are
many arguments that such automatic
pricing may hold back the total volume
that can be sold over time. "If you keep
increasing the price for your product then,
How high is high?
maybe, the effective demand will de-
crease," he says.
"The total dollars coming to the
industry are reduced as the result of a
supply that actually sets the market
price."
He finds there are a number of
characteristics to supply management,
both positive and negative. "Albeit at this
time maybe the characteristic is positive."
Manager of Agricultural Services for
the Toronto -Dominion Bank, Larry
Thompson, agrees there are two sides to
supply management.
Is the quota system in the dairy industry
responsible for the low incidence of
bankruptcies there? Thompson is unsure.
"We don't see, because of the quota
system, the large expansion we see in the
hog and beef business.
So in that respect the quota system may
have reduced the number of bankruptcies
indirectly."
Frayne finds that quota commodities
do pay for the income stability quotas
provide. A beef producer can increase or
decrease his herd when he thinks this
more profitable. The quota man can do
neither.
This, he maintains, leaves the beef and
pork producer with the possibility of
getting in trouble from mismanagement
from a financial point of view and/or
misallocation of resources. The dairyman
might also have had the same problems if
he had the same opportunity to add to
production.
Frayne doesn't think the decrease in the
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THE RURAL VOICE/NOVEMBER 1981 PG. 5