Dairy Farmers of Ontario waived April’s over-quota penalty for milk production as it works to manage increased demand, especially for milk protein.
The DFO board of directors made the rare decision to get more milk into the system at the request of processors, says Mark Hamel, DFO board chair, in a statement.
Why it matters
It is challenging for dairy farmers to quickly change the protein composition of their milk to meet consumer demands.
“As we come into the spring period, we continue to observe a growing protein market in Ontario and across the P5, which requires additional volumes of milk (not butterfat),” says Hamel.
The P5, the milk pool that takes in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, also added an incentive day in May. That gives farmers the ability to produce an extra day’s worth of milk in that month. The incentive day is often used in the fall to increase production to meet fall demand, but has become increasingly common in the spring. This is the third time a May incentive day has been added in the past five years.
The strong demand for dairy protein is good news for farmers and processors, says Hamel.
In its most recent national milk supply report, the Canadian Dairy Commission said that February’s milk demand exceeded supply.
The national milk supply was the same in February as it was in January.
With demand increasing, national butter stocks declined by about six tonnes. Butter stocks had been rising through 2025, as demand for protein outstripped demand for butterfat.
Product sales in February were driven by a 10.7 per cent increase in demand for yogurt and a 36.6 per cent increase in demand for butter, masking declines in demand for cheese, milk, cream and ice cream.
The Canadian Dairy Commission expects the total requirements for dairy products to increase 1.5 per cent by December 2026.
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