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PHOTO BY BREANNE MASSEY
Early recruiting at Rockies Spring Camp
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New conversation area created in valley
German exchange student, Tim Vogel, was one of several teens who built teepee table ornaments at the Summit Youth Centre on April 21st for the Windermere Valley Youth Centre’s Celebrity Luncheon fundraiser featuring Shuswap chief Barb Cote, which took place at Copper Point Resort on Sunday, April 24th.
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8 Kootenay dairy producers agree diafiltered milk is a problem PUBLICATIONS MAIL REGISTRATION NO. 7856
STEVE HUBRECHT steve@invermerevalleyecho.com A Quebec NDP MP and a group of several hundred farmers gathered on the steps of Parliament Hill in Ottawa last week and called on the federal government to stop allowing protein concentrates from south of the border to be used as milk in Canadian cheese. NDP agriculture critic Ruth Ellen Brousseau said on Thursday, April 21st that the ingredient causing the furor — called diafiltered milk — is being used improperly, and small-scale local dairy farmers across the country are suffering as a result. Local dairy producers as well as others involved in the agriculture industry here in the Kootenay region have echoed her sentiments and raised other concerns. “This is simply not right. What’s really sad is that small producers are feeling the wrath of this much harder
than the big companies. A lot of lo- milk from south of the border as actucal-scale farmers are really going to be al milk — a move that is fine accordhurt by this. It blows my mind that it’s ing to the Canadian Food Inspection even happening. Somebody needs to Agency (which classifies the protein put a stop to it,” said Hopkins Harvest concentrate as milk), but not fine acmanager Kersten Hopkins. Hopkins cording to the Canadian Border SerHarvest is an outlet for D Dutchmen vices Agency (which classifies it as a Dairy, out of Sicamous “On top of that, protein ingredient). it’s (using a pro“The situation is tein concentrate) urgent and producSo a hormone that gross. It’s similar in ers are tired of waitisn’t used here some ways to using ing. The solution is genetically modi- in Canada is essentially simple and comes fied organisms. We coming in the back down to the governhave a natural way ment standing up door with this protein of doing things; for Canada’s dairy why don’t we stick concentrate. industry by enforcWAYNE HARRIS with that? We as OWNER, KOOTENAY MEADOWS FARM ing cheese compoconsumers should sition standards,” probably not be putting these kinds of said Kootenay-Columbia MP Wayne things in our bodies.” Stetski in an April 25th media release. All cheese made in Canada must, by “Our family dairy farms are being law, contain a minimum amount of ac- threatened and the NDP will continue tual milk. Many large Canadian dairy to fight for their future.” companies have been using diafiltered According to Stetski’s media release,
Canadian producers lost a total of over $220 million in 2015 due to imported diafiltered milk from the United States. Although there are no dairy producers in the Columbia Valley, nearby Kootenay Meadows Farm, whose milk is popular here in the valley (also known as the Kootenay Alpine Cheese Company), is in Creston and the owners of that dairy agreed that diafiltered milk is an issue. “It’s not a good thing for Canadian dairy farmers and it’s hurting our market,” said Kootenay Meadows co-owner Wayne Harris. “It’s displacing milk that otherwise would have be produced in Canada by dairy farmers.” Harris, who uses only actual milk produced on his farm to make his cheese, cautioned that he’s not an industry spokesperson, but said using diafiltered milk “leads to an inferior quality of cheese and, worse, you can’t guarantee where that milk was produced.” See A3
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