[Newsbot]

Title: Canadians don't know the price of milk
Category: Business
Posted By: Regina
Date: 2010-11-23 08:02:34
Canadian

[Public_Domain]

[Brenda]

I did. In the cow-country I am from, milk quotas are a regular news item.

[ShepherdsDog]

We pay about $ 5.70 for an American gallon at Costco(heavily subsidized local dairy industry). When we were up north in Canada, we were paying about $11, In the last ten years the consumption of milk and other dairy products has sky rocketed here.

EDIT: Just checked the actual price, size of jug and conversion rates here.

[raydan]

I financed a lot of quota sales at one time in my life.
Can you imagine, 2 million dollars on average, per farm, for a piece of paper.

[Proculation]

Mr_Canada Mr_Canada:

This is interesting, I never knew any of this.

Well, now you know. I don't know about other provinces but in Quebec, how the agriculture is managed is a little bit like a mafia. Prices of meat, milk, maple syrup, eggs, are all controlled by quotas that the farmers have to buy at very high prices. For a little farm of about 50 cows it's more than 1 million dollars ONLY for the quotas. The farm cannot produce more than that quota. The surplus is destroyed instead of sold.

All that is controlled by a monopolistic union, the Union des Producteurs Agricoles, who are the sole buyer of the products and the one determining the rules, what you can or cannot produce, how you will produce it, etc. etc. You cannot decide to opt-out of the UPA and if you don't obey the rules, you face lawsuits and you cannot get the tax credits from the government. Add to that all the rules dictated by the government on the agriculture sector, the small-medium "family" farms are quickly disappearing, destroying the economy of the rural regions while the big corporations that are favoured by those rules are getting bigger with the blessed help of the union.

[Regina]

Our dairy products cost substantially more in Canada then they do in the most remote places in the US.........especially cheese.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

$1:

These groups also argue that by several measures, Canadian retail dairy prices are competitive. An analysis by the Dairy Farmers of Ontario shows that New Zealand has the highest retail price, at $5.69, for a four-litre size package of milk. That was followed by Ontario at $4.66, Britain at $3.57 and the U.S. at $3.38.

$4.66 in Ontario?? Where the fuck did they find milk at that price?? I ain't seen it for less than $6.49/4 litres in over a year, except when it's been on sale.
On the other hand, I don't mind paying extra for higher quality and standards.

[Regina]

Last weekend in a US store........Milk $3.24/Gallon.

[Tman1]

Doesn't mean much really. No idea what you're talking about but back in Canada....the metric system is the key.

[ShepherdsDog]

Even factoring in the different size, it's still a good price. The American gallon is about 3.8 litres.

[PostFactum]

Hm, here the litter of milk costs 1 $, and that's expensive for most of people.

[bootlegga]

Regina Regina:

Last weekend in a US store........Milk $3.24/Gallon.

That's a pretty good price, but it's not that much higher than here.

I can buy four litres at Wal-Mart for about $4.

And I agree that US cheese prices are lower, but given that American cheese (that's what they call processed cheese down there) sucks - who cares?

[Regina]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Regina Regina:

Last weekend in a US store........Milk $3.24/Gallon.

That's a pretty good price, but it's not that much higher than here.

I can buy four litres at Wal-Mart for about $4.

And I agree that US cheese prices are lower, but given that American cheese (that's what they call processed cheese down there) sucks - who cares?

That price was just at a gas station not a supermarket or Costco type store. You can get all sorts of cheeses down there and I can't say that I've ever noticed a difference in any of them from ours. I usually don't buy the processed stuff though.

[bootlegga]

Regina Regina:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Regina Regina:

Last weekend in a US store........Milk $3.24/Gallon.

That's a pretty good price, but it's not that much higher than here.

I can buy four litres at Wal-Mart for about $4.

And I agree that US cheese prices are lower, but given that American cheese (that's what they call processed cheese down there) sucks - who cares?

That price was just at a gas station not a supermarket or Costco type store. You can get all sorts of cheeses down there and I can't say that I've ever noticed a difference in any of them from ours. I usually don't buy the processed stuff though.

I know, I was just making a pun about cheese in the US.