Would you try a dairy-based sports drink or a biodegradable plastic bag made from milk components?
They need something innovative to help grow the market for milk and turn a “structural surplus” of skim milk into profit, said Mark Hamel in an interview after his update to dairy farmers at Grey Bruce Farmers’ Week in Elmwood Thursday.
Hamel runs a dairy farm with his family west of Elmwood, in Bruce County. He’s also the Grey-Bruce rep on the board of the Dairy Farmers of Ontario and has served as past-chair of Gay Lea Foods Co-operative. He opened his talk by first acknowledging it’s still good to be a dairy farmer.
“It’s very consistent, it’s stable and dependable and profitable to a certain degree,” he said. That profit margin built into the national system of quotas allows farmers to invest in technology to be more efficient and have better lives.