Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) dispute tribunal’s decision, refuse to refund 15% quota sales clawback to farmers, and spend money on appeal lawyers instead

Here’s an excerpt from a recent story by Nelson Zandbergen in the Eastern Ontario AgriNews, brought to our attention by Bernie Bailey, who’s written about his experiences running one of the last small dairies in the province.

“Dundas couple’s quota assessment battle continues

Will farmers be cowed by latest moves by the DFO? Photo from Dairy Farmers of Ontario website.

CHESTERVILLE — A Kafkaesque battle pitting Ontario’s supply-management bureaucracy against two retired North Dundas Township dairy farmers was replayed last month in front of the same quasi-judicial panel that originally upheld the couple’s claim for $114,500 they lost in a sudden quota policy change.

John and Susanna Cayer had successfully appealed a 15-per-cent clawback or “assessment” on the January 2007 sale of their provincial milk production quota, at the Ontario Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Tribunal.

Siding with the Cayers in a March 2008 ruling, the three-person Tribunal had ordered the Dairy Farmers of Ontario — which abruptly imposed the assessment scheme in November 2006 — to reimburse them within 30 days.

Sally Fallon refutes claims by Toronto newspaper columnists who argue pasteurization kills only pathogens

PASTEURIZATION KILLS MORE THAN PATHOGENS—AND DOESN’T DO THAT VERY WELL

Pasteurization was not invented to save lives but to extend shelf life. Pasteurization will kill most (but not all) pathogens in milk and is necessary for cows kept in confinement and fed an inappropriate diet based on grains. But cows on pasture do not have pathogens in their milk—the Crown knows this very well after testing Michael Schmidt’s milk for almost 20 years; ten years of testing in California have failed to detect a single human pathogen in Organic Pastures Dairy’s raw grass-fed milk.

Furthermore, raw milk contains numerous anti-microbial components that kill pathogens should contamination occur during handling and bottling; this is not the case for pasteurized milk as the heat treatment destroys these components, leaving a perfect medium for bacterial growth. It is very difficult to detect pathogens in raw milk, but pathogens in pasteurized milk have sickened tens of thousands over the years, and recently caused the death of three people in the state of Massachusetts.