BRUSSELS — Ontario’s dairy traceability program, proAction, took effect Sept. 1, but many dairy farmers don’t know what the program requires of them.
The program, brought forward by the Dairy Farmers of Canada and Ontario, requires farmers to track milk quality, food safety, animal care, traceability, and the farm’s impact on the environment.
It was being criticized before it was even out of development, with some farmers saying it was going to add extra paperwork that they didn’t need, for consumers who don’t care.
For Brussels-area dairy farmer Joe Terpstra, who milks with six robots in Huron County, proAction isn’t extra work to be upset about but simply the new reality.
“I know some people are dead against it. But either way, we have to do it, so you may as well just buckle down and do it,” he told Farmers Forum.
Terpstra isn’t familiar with the new requirements, busy as he was with corn silage when he received his handbook in late September. But he plans on having a paperwork-savvy employee handle that side of the program.
The program aims to have inspected every dairy farm in the country, and have every dairy farm do at least one self-assessment, by Sept. 1, 2019.
