A new report says that Canada artificially increases the price of its milk by 28%.The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s recent report showed from 2022 to 2024, Canada's dairy farmers made 28% of their profits from government policy rather than from competitive market prices.This is due to the feds' supply management, which places limits on the supply of dairy products and controls their imports, making them more expensive than they otherwise would be. Last week, the feds announced they would be increasing milk prices by 2.3% in February 2026.."The cost of animal feed and labour contributed to sustained cost pressures," the feds claim, justifying the planned increase. "This increase reflects a balanced approach that aligns with recent inflation, which rose to 2.4%, and food price trends, which rose to 4.0% in September.""The increase supports dairy producers in managing rising input costs while maintaining affordability and stability for Canadian consumers."They also stated the price of storing dairy charges will increase by the same amount — which will affect the price of milk used to create other dairy products..According to Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, who runs an agri-food analytics lab at Dalhousie University, he says "We believe that there are about 300 farms that were part of the study to evaluate exactly how much it costs to produce milk.""The problem is that if you're sampling too many small farms, you're likely going to boost the percentage higher — so we don't know.""The bottom line is that it's a commission coordinated and governed by the dairy farmers of Canada, or people who are somewhat related to the dairy farmers of Canada.""Conflicts of interest are not necessarily addressed.""Like last year, the increase was incredibly modest," Charlebois continued."That's why this year, I think the increase is again reasonable, but what it's based on — we just don't know."
