What the dairy industry looks like now tells us a lot about the social, technological, and economic forces at work in rural PEI. Through the first half of the 1900’s there would have been as many as a thousand small farms milking cows, and dozens of small community dairies.

Hundreds of farmers would ship cream to local butter plants and feed the skim milk to pigs on small mixed farms. Today a 154 bigger, highly capitalized operations, some with robotic milkers and climate-controlled barns, are what’s left. On the processing side, one company operates five plants. With ADL now the last dairy standing it’s hard to believe there was a time decades ago when it was the scrappy little brother in the dairy industry.

While roughly 10 per cent of PEI milk production goes into fresh table milk (much lower than other provinces) those who sold to dairies like Purity received more money for their milk. They were seen as the Rolls Royce of the industry. Farmers who produced what was called “industrial” milk, which was made into butter, cheese and so on made less. Now quality standards for all producers are the same, milk is pooled, and all farmers receive their share of market returns from the products the milk becomes.

PEI/ADL is the scrappy little brother in the Canadian dairy industry too. The province has less than 2 per cent of the country’s dairy farms, while Quebec and Ontario combined have 80 per cent. It’s not surprising. As a fresh product produced daily dairy farms and processors historically set up close to where the majority of people live (that was Purity’s advantage on PEI as well).

Like the potato industry the vast majority of milk production on PEI has to find markets outside the province. To its credit ADL has carved out an important market niche in Canada: cheese. ADL produces more than two dozen varieties of cheese under its own name (including Dairy Isle) and for Cows, another successful PEI company. (ADL also produces the ice cream base for all those amazing Cows ice creams). Other larger companies don’t advertise it, but ADL makes Tre Stelle feta, mozzarella, asiago, and other private label cheeses sold by Walmart and Loblaws for example.

This is a business that demands high quality and competitive pricing, and ADL has been able to capture and maintain these markets. Old fashioned but proven production methods, hand salting and natural aging, fuel the success. It matters to all of us. The economic impact of the dairy sector on PEI is approaching $600 million. That’s not small potatoes.

 We have all heard the attacks on supply management as Canadians wrestle with high food prices. Here on PEI we should never forget that the success of dairy farmers and ADL hinges on this highly regulated system. Import controls keep cheaper American dairy products from overwhelming ADL’s success in Canada’s big city supermarkets.

And dairy farmers receiving a steady and fair income allows attention to be paid to animal welfare and proper land management. Every time I see a permanent pasture next to a waterway, I know it’s part of a dairy farm. This is one thing I hope doesn’t change.