Alberta Milk’s Kell Mauthe said a couple of Alberta dairy farmers have left the industry as a result of the new testing program.
Every single milk tank to be tested
Nelson Zandbergen
Farmers Forum
ST. ISIDORE — Every single tank of milk picked up at Ontario dairy farms will be tested for bacteria levels starting March 1. That’s up from the previous four-tests-per-month policy. However, the Dairy Farmers of Ontario won’t be using the extra information to take a harder line with producers just yet, unlike its dairy industry counterparts in Western Canada.
Alberta, for instance, has imposed penalties on producers for each collected tank of milk that falls afoul of the bacterial limit since it began testing each farm’s shipment in January 2023.
Similarly penalizing Ontario producers on a tank-by-tank basis “is a model that we’re looking at,” DFO board member John Wynands told Farmers Forum after an Alberta milk official gave an overview of that province’s ‘progressive penalty program’ at the recent Dairy Day conference in St. Isidore. “We’re definitely putting more focus on milk quality,” Wynands said.
Currently, Ontario dairy farmers are subject to an escalating financial hit if they exceed the bacterial limit on more than 40 % of weekly tests taken in a three-month period. The charge comes off their monthly milk cheque and ranges between $3 and $5 per hectolitre for the first three incidents in a year. Pickups are shut off on the fourth offence occurring in a 12-month period.
Every tank of milk picked up at Ontario farms is already tested for composition — protein and butterfat, somatic cell count, freezing point and antibiotics. The move to also test each tank for bacteria adds considerably to DFO costs because — unlike the other tests — it requires a lab to operate 7 days a week. The increased cost, shared by the province’s 3,200-plus dairy farmers, amounts to about $600 annually for the average producer, according to Wynands.
The bacterial limit for raw milk picked up at the farm is 121,000 individual cells per milliliter.
Kelly Mauthe, in charge of the policy at Alberta Milk, explained that his province imposed tank-by-tank bacterial testing not because of any particular problems with milk quality. It was really about making continuous improvement in the industry, a concept dairy farmers already “live and breathe” every day, Mauthe pointed out. “What can I do to make things a little less costly or more profitable? Genetics is a good example. I think it applies to milk quality as well. If we can move the bar a little bit, we’ll keep our customers happy.”
Bacterial counts exceeded the limit in only 1.5 % to 2.5 % of tests conducted before Alberta switched to testing every tank in combination with the progressive penalty regime. It has since dropped to 1 % of samples “and we’re hoping we can get it down to 0.5 %,” he said.
Alberta has just over 420 dairy producers. They paid collective penalties of around $500,000 annually for exceeding the bacterial limit before the new program came into effect. That’s now increased to about $800,000.
Farmers that consistently fail to meet the standard also find themselves suspended sooner from shipping milk than was the case under the old system. In a rolling 12-month period, they’re docked $5 per hectolitre on the first 10 tanks that test too high for bacteria, $15 per hectolitre on tanks 11 to 20, and $45 on tanks 21 to 30. They’re shut off on the 31st tank that exceeds the bacterial threshold. Because the testing occurs on a per-tank basis, the penalty is likewise deducted from the revenue generated by that specific tank, not on the entire monthly milk cheque.
Mauthe said that only a couple of Alberta dairy farmers have bowed out of the industry as a result of the demands of the new testing program.
There is a small bonus paid out to producers who consistently exceed the minimum standard, Mauthe said. “There is a carrot and a stick,” he said, conceding it’s a hard sell to get processors to pay more for ever higher quality milk.
