Huigen’s family milks 260 cows in a modern, parlour dairy in southern Ontario. The video, which was first posted to TikTok but has since been taken down and is only available where it was copied, shows him ranting against the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) and the federal and provincial governments, saying he has been forced to dump over 30,000 litres of milk produced over quota in the past 10 years without being able to donate it to food banks or hospitals, and he can’t expand his farm.
Most of his fellow farmers feel he needs some corrections and/or explanation so as to not be misleading. In fact, he has produced far more excess milk, shipped it, and been paid in full for it. The DFO allows every farmer to carry an over-quota production float the equivalent of 10 days of the farm’s daily quota, for which they are paid in full.
For example, if a farm had 100 kilograms of daily quota, then their over-quota float would be equal to 1,000 kilograms (100 X 10). If his float is used up, he has over-produced much more than 30,000 litres.
Every farmer I have listened to regarding this says the same thing: it’s poor management. He must pay all costs for the milk he is dumping instead of culling some cows or drying some off early. It’s wasted money.
It is the same as a shoe manufacturer knowing it sells 10,000 pairs a year but choosing to produce 15,000 pairs. The balance goes in the dumpster. It’s poor management.
Both need to get their production in line with what they can sell.
His quote milk in the store costs $7 per litre (as he places a 1.5-litre bottle of Fairlife in the shot) must be for four litres of premium milk. The average cost today per four-litre bag of 3.25 per cent milk in Canada is $5.89, or $1.4725 per litre.
I guess he hasn’t bought milk for awhile.
He stated he can’t even donate this milk he has to dump, but over five hundred Ontario dairy farmers donated in-quota milk monthly to food banks and hospitals. Annually over one million litres of milk are donated with the assistance of producers, milk transport companies, and processors.
It’s the Ontario Milk Program which has been in operation for over 25 years and is Feed Ontario’s longest-operating program. If Huigen took some effort to bring his production in-line, he could sign up this coming summer and donate his milk.
Neither the provincial nor federal governments maintain or enforce the rules and regulations under which we dairy farmers produce milk— it is the DFO and the Dairy Farmers of Canada. Talking to the prime minister nor premier (Huigen said Rob Ford is the premier) accomplishes nothing.
Lastly, this dairy farmer complains he cannot expand his 260-cow operation to cover his two sons. That is a problem all of us are facing. Over the past 40 years the number of dairies in Ontario has dwindled from just over 11,000 to barely 3,000.
Quota in Canada is bought and sold over the monthly quota exchange at a set price of $24,000 per kilogram in Ontario. With so few farmers getting out, there is less and less quota available.
Every month we can enter bids to purchase available quota, to a maximum of 10 per cent of our own quota. In recent years there have been so few selling that all that is available to each producer is 0.1 kilograms or occasionally 0.2.
The only way to expand is to buy a neighbour’s farm and, after five years, amalgamate the two. Even then, 10 per cent of the bought farm’s quota must be sold through the monthly exchange, or the farm has to diversify into something else. Most dairies now grow cash crops to increase their income.
The reason for the enforcement of over-quota milk is to keep the system operating. Milk has a very short shelf life and there is no point in having too much milk that won’t be sold and must be dumped eventually.
When you see Huigen’s rant, please don’t believe it’s exactly as he says it is.
