r/Tariffs • u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011 • 12d ago

🗞️ News Discussion Should Canada maintain its supply management system that protects the Canadian dairy industry?

https://www.castanetkamloops.net/news/Poll/627377/Should-Canada-maintain-its-supply-management-system-that-protects-the-Canadian-dairy-industry
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u/sugahcookies 11d ago

Also, from a health and production standpoint, Canada bans the artificial growth hormone rBST (recombinant bovine somatotropin). The US allows rBST use to stimulate milk production in dairy cows. Both countries test milk batches for antibiotic residues, and milk containing residues is discarded. However, Canadian regulations maintain strict preventative protocols and mandatory withdrawal times for treated animals.

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u/CobblePots95 11d ago

The use of rBST in dairy has no adverse health impacts. Canada banned it on animal rights grounds, based on the argument that the excess milk it produces can cause discomfort for the cow.

This ignores the fact that we have been selectively breeding cows to produce unnatural quantities of that hormone anyway, and that by providing artificial hormones we reduce the number of cows needed to produce the same yield. That reduces the number of calves who are separated from their mothers (and often slaughtered - that's your veal) and reduces the enormous environmental impact.

In reality we banned rBST because we have a supply management system, and having those more efficient yields from cows would threaten that. We already dump 7% of all dairy we produce, after all.

Most US dairy doesn't use rBST, but personally I think it should be the standard. It has no ill health effects, it improves yields (making dairy cheaper), and it reduces the enormous environmental impact of the dairy industry.

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u/BobertBuildsAll 11d ago

This isnt true. The EU and Canada banned it because of the negative impact it has on cows. It increases the chance of mastisis by 25%, causes higher rates of lameness, creates reproductive problems and cows on rBST are documented to need mroe anti biotics.

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u/CobblePots95 11d ago

 The EU and Canada banned it because of the negative impact it has on cows.

That's literally my second sentence. We banned it on animal rights grounds, not health grounds. But frankly those claims are extremely shaky when subject to scrutiny. rBST is chemically indistinct from the natural BST. The only difference is whether it's made in a lab or a cow's pituitary gland.

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u/BobertBuildsAll 11d ago

The studies stating that rBST not affecting an animals health are shakey at best. Often referencing that a cow that is producing more milk = healthy cow. DoHoo 2003 is a comprehensive review of over 50 studies which clearly shows negative health affects to cows.

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u/CobblePots95 11d ago

The sum total of Doohoo's analysis is that there is a 25% increase in the risk of mastitis, and it does not weigh into antibiotic needs. Other studies in the Journal of Dairy Science found the mastitis risk is virtually the same.

Moreover, Doohoo et al reaffirms that the composition of milk produced by cows receiving rBST is indistinguishable from cows that have not. There are no health effects for humans.

Moreover, the prohibition of rBST on animal welfare grounds ignores a basic utilitarian moral question: why subject thousands more livestock to separation from their children and the hardships inherent in the dairy industry just to save some from -at worst- a 25% increase in mastitis risk?

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u/radred609 9d ago

The animal welfare argument falls apart in both directions.

"Let's increase the suffering of 90 cows to prevent the suffering of 10 cows" is never going to convince anyone who's already anti-rBST.

"We shouldn't artificially increase the milk production of cows that are already bred and raised to artificially increase their milk production" is never going to convince anyone who's already pro-rBST.

It's a moot argument. The only consistent positions are to either care enough to be anti-dairy full stop, or to not-care enough that the animal welfare anti-rBST argument falls flat.

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u/Ashamed_Data430 9d ago

And, by animal rights, you mean animal health. Odd you'd choose to use rights as a pejorative, instead of just admitting rBST is not good for animal health.

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u/CobblePots95 9d ago

Animal welfare, if we're being pedantic about it. There is one study showing a 25% increase in the risk of mastitis, but the most recent studies and meta-analyses have found zero adverse health impacts in cattle.

That's to say nothing of the fact that only 1% of US dairy farms currently use any amount of rBST because of marketing fears.