New Zealand, Australian and US dairy companies are accusing Canada of dumping low-priced milk products on world markets and are asking their governments to intervene.
Industry groups from the three nations have written to their trade and agriculture ministers and officials expressing concern over the impact of “Canada’s trade delinquency” on dairy protein markets, the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand said Thursday. Artificially low-priced Canadian exports are undermining legitimate interests, it said.
“Of concern is the purposeful design of Canada’s milk pricing mechanisms to under-price the surplus milk protein generated by its domestic supply management system and incentivize disposal onto world markets,” DCANZ said in a statement. “Collective and coordinated action is requested to address the mechanisms being used by Canada to enable these exports to be dumped on world markets.”
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The action comes as the world braces itself for potential trade tariffs when President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday.
Canada is one of the countries that have been singled out by Trump, with Ottawa drawing up a list of C$150 billion ($105 billion) list of US-manufactured items it could hit with retaliatory levies.
Global milk supplies, meanwhile, are expected to grow this year, with output increases in all major exporters for the first time since 2020, according to Rabobank.
Wasted Milk
Almost 7 billion liters of Canadian milk worth around C$14.9 billion has been wasted since 2012, enough for a year’s supply for 4.2 million people, according to a paper published in the Ecological Economics journal in October. Canada exported almost C$500 million in dairy products in 2023, most of which went to the US.
New Zealand has a long-running trade dispute with Ottawa over access to the Canadian market. In October, it triggered compulsory negotiations under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement both countries are members of. New Zealand-based Fonterra Cooperative Group is the world’s largest dairy exporter.
