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By Alice McFarlane

Agriculture Roundup

Agriculture Roundup for Thursday April 9, 2020

Apr 9, 2020 | 9:39 AM

Efforts are underway for Saskatchewan milk producers to donate hundreds of thousands of litres of milk products to local food banks.

The COVID-19 pandemic has closed restaurants, reducing demand for dairy products and forcing producers to dump some milk.

SaskMilk manager of policy and research Joy Smith said steps are being taken for significant donations to food banks.

“We’re still in discussions with the processors to try to make that happen,” Smith said. “If the processors can’t take the milk and turn it into a product, it can’t get donated. Milk can’t just go straight off the farm to a food bank. It has to be pasteurized. We’re working really hard to make that happen.”

Smith said milk producers are frustrated when they go to their local stores and see empty dairy shelves. She said it’s not because of a shortage of production on farm but an issue somewhere in the value chain and she hopes consumers understand that.

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A market analyst said in times of uncertainty farmers shouldn’t change their plans too much.

Neil Townsend with Farmlink Marketing Solutions said farmers shouldn’t try and guess what will happen in the markets and should stick to their planned rotations.

“We’re going to see a lot of uncertainty and volatility,” Townsend said. “If you see an opportunity to lock in a profitable acre you should be taking those steps to forward selling and take some risk off the table. There’s a very good chance that we’ll see a lot of volatility in 2021, positive and negative. We’re not sure which way it goes.”

Townsend said it will come from the COVID-19 pandemic and the pace of the economic recovery with the ultimate decision maker in agriculture being Mother Nature.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF