New York farmers close to dumping milk over Canadian trade dispute

Rep. Chris Collins says a trade dispute with the Canada has forced New York state farmers to dump their milk "into ditches" because they can no longer sell it across the border. "They’ve now taken something they call ultra-filtered milk. They effectively with a pricing move, our dairy farmers are no longer able to get that product into Canada," Collins said in an interview with Bloomberg. "They are now dumping milk into the ditches. The travesty there is beyond belief to see tankers of milk being dumped because there’s no market to sell them in."The dispute began last year when the Canadian dairy industry created a new pricing class for ultra-filtered milk, a protein-heavy version of the milk you buy at the supermarket. It’s typically used to produce yogurt and certain cheeses.The new pricing class lowered the price of ultra-filtered milk from Canadian dairy producers, making it cheaper for companies in Canada to buy the product domestically instead of importing it from New York state. The new pricing class took effect at the beginning of April. But is Collins right that the dispute has forced farmers to dump milk into ditches?A spokesman for Collins’ office could not point to any farms that have dumped milk because of the trade dispute, but did say the congressman was talking about farmers in New York state.