Too much milk: Two nations’ travails with dairy policy

Standing in her barn outside Cambridge, Wisconsin, surrounded by cows with tags in their ears, Tina Hinchley is growing optimistic that the five-year crisis in America’s dairy industry is coming to an end.

“We are not out of the woods yet,” she says. But “I see blue skies.”

Five hundred miles east, in London, Ontario, clouds of doubt are beginning to form for Canadian dairyman Tommy Faulkner. He and many other dairy farmers worry that three trade deals to open up market access across Canada will flood the nation's carefully balanced milk supply and send prices plunging. 

“I don’t think anybody knows [the true impact]. But the impact is not going to be minimal,” he says. “Our government did not