Due to the impact of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on Canada’s supply-managed sectors, the Canadian government will be offering compensation to dairy, poultry and egg producers and processors of approximately CA$4.8 billion (US$3.6 billion) over the next few years.
“The government made a promise to compensate producers for the losses caused by the USMCA agreement. Today, they can say they fulfilled their promise,” said Pierre Lampron, chair of the Dairy Farmers of Canada. “We can now look towards the future.”
How will the CA$4.8 billion help the dairy, poultry and egg sectors?
The funding will be directed towards a variety of programs intended to strengthen the economic sector and help processors invest in new technologies and initiatives:
- The Dairy Direct Payment Program
- The Poultry and Egg On-Farm Investment Program
- A $300 million program to add value to solids-non-fat, a by-product of milk processing
- Incremental direct payments to dairy farms
- The Supply Management Processing Investment Fund
“Promise made, promise kept. We made a commitment to fully and fairly compensate the market losses suffered by dairy, poultry and egg producers and processors, and that is what we have done,” said the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. “I would like to reiterate our government’s commitment not to concede any further market shares under supply management during future trade negotiations.”
What is the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement?
Colloquially referred to as NAFTA 2.0, the USMCA is a mutually beneficial trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico which replaced the original trade agreement on July 1, 2020.
According to representatives from the dairy, poultry and egg sectors, the USMCA caused financial losses across the sector.
“Hatching egg producers across the country have experienced losses due to recent trade agreements, but we are pleased to see that the Fall Economic Statement has addressed an ongoing commitment to Canadian poultry and egg farmers on programming to offset the impact of the CUSMA agreement, said Brian Bilkes, chair of the Canadian Hatching Egg Producers. “This funding will help our producers reinvest to make our sector stronger and more resilient which benefits all Canadians.”
