COVID-19 has affected a host of industries. Cows are the latest victim of the novel coronavirus. More accurately, dairy farmers of Ontario are dumping milk because there’s just nowhere for it to go.
“We Can’t Turn The Cows Off”
On April 3rd and 4th, 2020, Aylmer, Ontario farmer John Walker was ordered to dump the milk his cows had produced. This is an extremely rare situation; there has been only one other time when the Dairy Farmers of Ontario has asked Ontario farmers to dispose of milk. But Walker completely understands. “There is just nowhere for it to go. Schools, restaurants and even Tim Hortons’ amount of cream is down. Those are all things that have slowed down demand for our product right now,” he explains. Farmers will be paid for the milk they are forced to dispose of, which they estimate will be about five million liters. (1)
The Group of Six
While it’s Ontario’s milk dumping that has captured media attention, it’s happening across Canada. British Columbia farmers were recently forced to dump milk as well. The Dairy Farmers of PEI chairman, Gordan McBeath, says “it’s probably inevitable that it [milk dumping] will happen,” since Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and New Brunswick have dumped milk–and the eastern provinces tend to act together. (2)
Donation?
Why not donate this extra milk? Dumping seems to be a waste. But, for food banks, “to have this tidal wave of milk and dairy products coming through their distribution can be overwhelming for them too,” says David Wiens, who is the vice-president of the Dairy Farmers of Canada. “It’s not just hauling a can of milk off the farm and taking it to the food bank. It has to be processed. They . . . don’t have the storage for it. . . they can’t accept five times as much milk.” Ontario already donates a million liters a year. “In order to increase that there is a cost to that,” says Christina Lewis, who is president of the Ontario Dairy Council. “Transporters are short-staffed, and dairy plants are experiencing absenteeism. There is more logistics to distribute it, so needs more thinking behind that.” (1, 2)
Sale Limits
However, grocery stores have been putting limits on milk at certain locations. Can’t the extra milk be used to make sure there is more than enough milk at the store?
It’s not that simple; distributors would have to change where the milk goes, how it’s packaged, how it’s transported–and that takes time. Christina Lewis wants people to stop putting the blame on Ontario’s dairy farmers:
Consumer demand is shifting on a day-to-day basis. There is no shortage of fluid milk products. Processors are filling retail orders at an extremely high fill rate, including extra milk orders from retailers. There is challenges on how it gets to shelf whether is distribution, or whether it’s staff getting it on the shelf. It’s not a dairy issue, it’s not a grocery issue.
Nobody wins in milk dumping. Certainly not farmers. To dump milk is “very, very disheartening for farmers,” David Wiens says. “It goes against every grain in their body.”
