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• Average milk farm price in Quebec for June 2015: $76.38 per hectolitre

Supply

Quotas can be inherited, or purchased at market value when available. Prices are on a per-cow basis, depending on market conditions and provincial production variables

1 cow (in Quebec or Ontario) = $25,000

Average farm size = 70 cows

Average quota value = $1,750,000

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“The consumer has a reasonable price for their milk and the producer gets (paid) a reasonable price,” said Shufelt. “If we were getting the same price as our neighbours to the south were getting, I think we would go out of business.”

From July 28 to 31, trade ministers sit down in Hawaii for what could be the final negotiations in the massive trade pact that covers 40 per cent of the world’s economy and gives access to a market of 800 million consumers in countries that include Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The TPP will eliminate 90 per cent of trade barriers between members of the Asia-Pacific bloc, which is why other countries are pressuring Canada to scrap dairy production quotas reinforced by triple-digit tariffs that largely seal the industry off from the rest of the world.

But that puts the government in an awkward position, especially in an election year. Les Producteurs de lait du Québec says the dairy industry adds $19 billion every year to the country’s GDP, and provides 214,000 jobs with 49 per cent of all Canada’s dairy farms in Quebec.

“If tomorrow you end supply management as it is, you will basically see an entire economic sector collapse,” said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor at the University of Guelph’s Food Institute. “Our farms aren’t efficient enough and they aren’t competitive enough.”